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jyiARY ELEANOR ROBERTS

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A PRACTICi^L HANDBOOK OF THE

StRlTCTXJRE OF VERSE TOGETHER
WlTH CHAPTERS ON THE ORIGIN
NATURE AjÎ> FOSMS OF POETRY
In Memory of
Raymond Best
THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
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Digitized by tine Internet Arcliive
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THE WRITER'S REFERENCE LIBRARY

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————
Table of Contents
Page
Foreword xi
Chapter I The Nature of Poetry .... i
/. Poetry Defined 3
2. The Ten Elements of Poetry 4
(a) Thought 5
(b) Emotion 5
(c) Interpretation 6
(d) Imagination 8
(e) Utterance 9
(f) Rhythm 10
(g) Beauty 11
(h) Loftiness 11
(i) Delight 12
(j) Profit 12
J. Poetry and Verse 13
Exercises 13
Chapter II The Origin and Progress of Poetry i5
1. The Origin of Poetry 16

2. The Spread of Poetry as an Art 17
J. Poetry Today 19
Exercises 20
Chapter III The Language of Poetry . .22

1. The Choice of Words 23
2. The Grouping of Words 26
J. Imagery 28
Exercises 35
Chapter IV The Analysis of Verse .... 37
1. The Relation of Spirit to Form 38
2. Meter 40
—————
VI TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
J. Quantity 41
4. Accent 41
Exercises 45
Chapter V The Foot 47
The Iambus, or Iambic Foot
1. 48
2. The Trochee, or Trochaic Foot 50
J. The Anapcest, or Anapcestic Foot 51
4. The Dactyl, or Dactylic Foot 51
5. Scanning 52
6. The Law of Quantity in English Verse • •
53
Exercises 55
Chapter VI Rhythm . .
59
1. Regular Rhythm Unrhymed 61
2. Regular Rhythm Rhymed 62
Unusual Rhythm Unrhymed
J. 62
Unusual Rhythm Rhymed
4. 63
Exercises 67
Chapter VII Rhyme 69
/. Rhyme Defined 69
2. Imperfect Rhymes 70
3. Kinds of Rhyme 72
4. Location of Rhymes 73
5. Unusual Rhyme Schemes 76
6. Special Cautions 78
Exercises 80
Chapter VIII Assonance and Alliteration .
83
1. Assonance 83
2. Alliteration 85
Exercises 88
Chapter IX Onomatopceia —Sound and Move-
ment 90
1. Sound 90
2. Movement 96
Exercises 98
Chapter X Tone-Color 100
Exercises 108
—————
TABLE OF CONTENTS Vll

Page
Chapter XI Meters and the Stanza . . .109
Types of Stanza no
Exercises 122
Chapter XII Irregularities 124

1. To Indicate Difference in Meaning . . .124
2. Other Irregularities 126
Exercises 128
Chapter XIII —Epic Poetry 130

Exercises 132
Chapter XIV Blank Verse 133

1. Milton on Blank Verse 134
2. Examples of Milton's Groups of Lines . . .135
J, The Ccesura or Pause 136
Exercises 138
Chapter XV Dramatic Poetry 140

Exercises 145
Chapter XVI The Ode 147

Exercises 151
Chapter XVII The Ballad 152

Exercises 155
Chapter XVIII The Lyric 157

Characteristics of the Lyric 158
Exercises 161
Chapter XIX The Sonnet 163

Rules of the Italian Sonnet 175
Exercises 176
Chapter XX Imitations of Classical Meters 178

1. Hexameters 179
2. Lyrical Measures 182
Exercises 186
Chapter XXI French Forms 188

Exercises 213
— ——
Vlll TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page
Chapter XXII Song- Writing 214
General Hints 215
Exercises 219
Chapter XXIII ^Light Verse 221
1. Vers de SocUU 223
2. Satirical Verse 227
3. Humorous Verse 237
4. Parody and Travesty 245
5. Nonsense Verse 255
6. Whimsical Verse 265
Exercises 286
APPENDICES
Appendix A Glossary or Metrical Terms . . 288
Appendix B —Some Books for the Study of Ver-
sification 291
Appendix C—Helps in the Study of Poetry .
293
1.General Collections 293
2. British Anthologies 294
2- American Anthologies 295
4. The Theory of Poetry 295
Appendix D —Light Verse 297
Index 298
;
FOREWORD
This little treatise does not aim to create poets —Heaven
must do that; but it does seek to furnish those who have
poetic inspirations with the knowledge of how to master
the forms of expression. Poetry is first a gift, then an

art —both the gift and the art demand cultivation.
Why is he honor'd with a poet's name,

Who neither knows, nor would observe a rule
And chooses to be ignorant and proud,
Rather than own his ignorance, and learn?
* * *
Unpolished verses pass with many men,

And Rome is too indulgent in that point;
But then, to write at a loose rambling rate.
In hope the world will wink at all our faults,
Is such a rash, ill-grounded confidence
As men may pardon, but will never praise.

Consider well the Greek originals,
Read them by day, and think of them by night.
So advised Horace in his "Ars Poetica, " and so would

every accomplished poet advise today. Industry is not a
substitute for inspiration, but it is an admirable assistant.
It is hoped particularly that young writers may take
X FOREWORD
pains to follow the exercises appended to nearly every

chapter. The constant practice of verse-making by those
who covet a mastery of form cannot be too highly com-
mended. A thousand pitfalls are here pointed out whose
deeps yawn for the unwary; a thousand interesting paths
are charted for those who abhor monotony. Only let the
versifier make himself master of a harmonious rhythm, an
easy style, correct metrical form, and a wide variety of
stanzas, and even though no high gifts are his he may hope
to produce pleasing verse.
But let him not enchain himself with a multitude of rules.
A knowledge of the manifold means of expression must
help and not hinder. "For the artist in verse," writes
Sidney Lanier, ''there is no law: the perception and love

of beauty constitute the whole outfit; and what is herein
set forth is to be taken merely as enlarging that perception
and exalting that love. " These words the authors desire
in spirit to make their own.
Teachers, it is hoped, will find the simple and progres-

sive arrangement of this book, its freedom from unex-
plained technicalities, and the abundant questions and
exercises provided at the close of the several chapters, a
suflScient promise of its usefulness as a class-room text,

while those who adopt it for individual study may find
those same qualities not without value.
The authors acknowledge gratefully the help given by

Miss Louise R. Bull, Miss Marie R. Bunker, and Mr.
Francis A. MacBeath, Jr., in reading and criticising the
FOREWORD XI
manuscript of this volume; and the valuable assistance of

Mr. Robert Thomas Hardy in reading the proof.
Thanks are also due the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin
& Co., for courteous permission to use illustrative extracts
from the poems of Longfellow, Bryant, Lowell, Holmes,

Saxe, Phcebe Gary, and Bayard Taylor; J. B. Lippincott
Co., publishers of Lippincott' s Magazine, for the use of
the poems and light verse by John Kendrick Bangs, Ella
Wheeler Wilcox, Carolyn Wells, Paul Lawrence Dunbar,

Chester Firkins, Walt Mason, McLandburg Wilson, Anne
Warrington Witherup, La Touche Hancock, Harold Sus-
man, Robert Thomas Hardy, Edmund F. Moberly, James
H. Hubbard, Dudley Glass, Sam S. Stinson, Cecilia A.
Loizeaux, Katharine Perry, L. C. Davis, Frederic Moxon,
G. Mayo, T. C. McConnell, Charles C. Jones, Harry A.
Rothrock, Charles H. La Tourette, J. G. Neumarker,
Frank M. Bicknell, Augustus W. Breeden, Karl von Kraft,
"C. H.," "J. B. E.," and "M. M. P. K.;" the Century
Co., and Mrs. Helena de K. Gilder, for "Sonnet on the
Sonnet," by Richard Watson Gilder; W. B. Conkey Co.,

and also the author, for "Old Rhythm and Rhyme, " from
"Picked Poems," by Ella Wheeler Wilcox; the publishers
of Ptick, as well as the author, for "In Mournful Num-
bers," by George B. Morewood; Forbes & Co., pub-
lishers, for Ben King's parody on "The Bridge;"
Small, Maynard & Co., for the poem "Fame," from
Father John B. Tabb's volume, "Lyrics;" Miss Carolyn
Wells for several excerpts from her anthologies,
XU FOREWORD
elsewhere referred to, and for her "Limericks" and

"Dithyramb to an Aeroplane;" Mr, Samuel Scoville, Jr.,
for his "Villanelle;" and Mr. Edward J. Wheeler, for his

"Kitty."
The Authors.
Philadelphia,
November i, 1912.
CHAPTER I
THE NATURE OF POETRY

Nature should lead the true poet by the hand, and he has far
better things to do than to busy himself in counting the warts
upon it, as Pope did. A cup of water from Hippocrene, tasting,
as must, of innocent pastoral sights and sounds, of the bleat
it
of lambs, of the shadows of leaves and flowers that have leaned

over it, of the rosy hands of children whose privilege it ever is
to paddle in it, of the low words of lovers who have walked by
its side in the moonlight, of the tears of the poor Hagars of the
world who have drunk from it, would choke a satirist. His
thoughts of the country must have a savor of Jack Ketch, and
see no beauty but in a hemp-field. Poetry is something to make
us wiser and better, by continually revealing those types of
beauty and truth which God has set in all men's souls; not by
picking out the petty faults of our neighbors to make a mock of.
— James Russell Lowell, Conversations on Some of the Old Poets.
Since time-out-of-mind, critics have disputed over the

problem, What is poetry? and even today no formal defini-
tion is widely accepted. Indeed, it is likely that we shall
never have a precise and comprehensive positive definition,

because so imaginative a subject must always be viewed
imaginatively, and that is as much as to say that varied
minds at different periods will view poetry variously.
Besides, as Hammerton observes with regard to pictorial
art, the affections often disturb the balance of judgment,
and what an individual loves in poetry is likely to seem to
2 THE ART OF VERSIFICATION
him greatest. Perhaps this is especially true with regard
to definitions essayed by poets themselves.

But there is a deeper reason than either of these why
poetry evades exact limitations: precise matters, for in-
stance those which obey the laws of weight and bulk and
shape, invite definition, while those which deal with emo-
tions, and ideals, and fantasies, constantly present new
appearances and defy rigid formulas. And so the category
of difficulties might be lengthened.
Many things, however, we may say definitely regarding
the nature of poetry. We know, for instance, pretty well
what it is not, and we also know positively what qualities

characterize most generally those expressions which by
universal assent are called poetry. By this means we shall
attempt to arrive at a somewhat elastic working theory
of this inspired art.
Thinkers of all ages have bequeathed to us many illumi-
nating utterances regarding poetry. While these now and
then have the precise form of definition, they were rarely
intended to be such, but rather were designed to empha-
size some of its primary qualities as they appeared to their
originators. Furthermore, these expressions were often
supplemented by other descriptive statements —rather
literary than definitive —which will serve as side-lights.
A comparative examination of such definitions and

descriptions as those above referred to, gives us on the one
hand an informing consensus of opinions by experts, while
on the other we go directly to the poems of great poets for
examples of the theories Thus by comparison,
illustrated.
contrast, and elimination, we have a residue of definition

—
THE NATURE OF POETRY 3
touching poetry as a thing produced —and not that of
intangible essence, the spirit of poetry —which may serve

as a working basis for our study.
I. Poetry Defined
Let us now quote, without discussing, several of the

more satisfactory deiSinitions of poetry, reserving for later
reference a larger group of descriptive phrases — less com-

plete, though often more brilliant than the definitions.
Poetry is "imaginative metrical discourse; or, more ex-
plicitly, . . the art of representing human experi-
ences, in so far as they are of lasting or universal interest,

in metrical language, usually with chief reference to the
emotions and by means of the imagination." — R. M.

Alden, Introduction to Poetry.
"Poetry is the utterance of a passion for truth, beauty,

and power, embodying and illustrating its conceptions by
imagination and fancy, and modulating its language on
the principle of variety in uniformity." Leigh Hunt,
What is Poetry?
"Poetry is rhythmical, imaginative language, expressing

the invention, taste, thought, passion, and insight of the
human soul." —E. C. Stedman, The Nature and Ele-
ments of Poetry.
"By poetry I mean the art of producing pleasure by

the just expression of imaginative thought and feeling in
metrical language." —W. J. Courthope, The Liberal
Movement in English Literature.
"Poetry is a particular form of art working in the ma-

terial of language, and we have defined it as patterned
language. If the technical art of poetry consists in making
patterns out of language, the substantial and vital fvmction
of poetry will be analogous; it will be to make patterns
out of life. And this is the case. This is what poetry has
been doing from its earliest days and is doing still. "
— J. W.
Mackail, Lectures on Poetry.
To add another to these may be temerity, yet for the

further development of these studies such an attempt
seems needful.
Poetry is the rhythmical expression of emotional thought,

interpreting life in language lofty, beautiful, and imaginative,
and uttered for both delight and instruction.
2. The Ten Elements of Poetry
In weighing a definition, it must be remembered that

not all great poems are great in every passage. Some rise
to greatness by reason of general effect, while others are
supreme in particular passages only. Really, this observa-

tion applies equally to all works of inspired art. Hence, to
apply rigidly the foregoing working definition, or any defi-
nition, to all parts of all great poems would be destructive,

and much more so to insist upon it in its entirety when
measuring minor poems. Yet in greater or lesser degree
each of the ten elements contained in our definition will be
present in every great poem, and in proportion as these
elements harmoniously exist in any literary work will it
rise in the scale of poetry. Omit one, and the poem suffers,
though it may still be a poem, and even a great poem.

(a) Thought is the basis of all literary expression, but
in the deepest sense it must characterize poetry. Thought
precedes feeling and reflection and artistic expression, and
unless a unified thought be the germ of the poem, no poem
can there be at all. No critic was more clear in the enforce-
ment of this truth than was Coleridge.
Just how "big" must be the thought to warrant its use
as the basis for a poem cannot be stated in clear terms.
Two considerations, however, are fundamental: the
thought should be either of permanent or of universal
interest. Kipling's " Recessional " may not rise to thought-
permanency, but as an occasional poem it certainly
achieves universality of interest. The converse is true of
Shelley's "The Skylark" —what it lacks in wide appeal
it makes up in depth, and hence in permanency. Other
poems — greater ones, it goes without saying — possess both
thought-permanency and thought-universality, like
Byron's apostrophe to the ocean in "Childe Harold's

Pilgrimage."
Thought, then, is the basis of poetry even when its
lighter phases are the more appealing and apparent, for
poetic thought is not the thought of physical science, of

logic, or of metaphysics. It may touch any of these formal
subjects, but only to transmute it into beauty and feeling.
{h) Emotion. During the reign of romanticism, when

Byron was the cynosure, emotion was not only regarded
as a sine qua non of poetry, but extremists like Moore
"
declared that " poetry ought only to be employed as an

interpreter of feeling," and Byron sang of "poetry, which
is but passion." Even the philosopher Mill described
poetry as "the delineation of the emotions." The present-
day view is more moderate, as expressed by Theodore
Watts-Dunton, in his article on Poetry in the "Encyclo-
pedia Britannica " :
" No literary expression can, properly
speaking, be called poetry that is not in a certain deep

sense emotional.
This last view is both conservative and sound. The
"spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings," to use
Wordsworth's notable characterization, "takes its origin
from emotion recollected in tranquillity." Reflect upon

this great dictum and see how true it is! Subject great
poems like Tennyson's "In Memoriam" and Lowell's
"Vision of Sir Launfal" to this test, and they meet it per-
fectly. Thought and feeling rethought and refelt give
rise to a surge of poetic emotion which overflows in poetry

—and that in turn mingles with the floods of feeling in
him to whom the poem comes. "Evangeline" as truly
arouses our emotions as it was born of emotion in the heart
of Longfellow; conversely, there is nothing more pitiable

than a pumped-up fountain of sham poetic feeling, for the
stream can rise no higher than its emotional source. To

feel rightly and deeply and sincerely is given only to genu-
ine souls.
(c) Interpretation is the poet's peculiar gift. The
Greeks, it has been often said, gave the poet his name,
poietes, "a maker, a creator;" and the Romans called him
vates, "a seer, " one whose sight was in and out and around
" "
and beyond; while the Germans made the name Dichter,
a poet, from dichten, "to forge, to compose, to invent, or

to muse.
Here in the word itself we have imbedded the central
idea. The poet sees what is beyond the ken of those who
are not see-ers by nature and constant habit. "Emphati-
cally it may be said of the poet, as Shakespeare hath said
of man, 'that he looks before and after,' " wrote Words-
worth^, and Emerson declared that "Poetry is the per-
petual endeavor to express the spirit of the thing i"^ while
Carriere is quoted by Dr. Gummere^ as thus phrasing
much the same idea: " Poetry speaks out the thought that
lies in things."
To interpret is to stand between and make the utterance
of one clear to the hearing of another. So does the poet
stand, having sensed the sweetness and light and music
and strength and seriousness of all hidden meanings in
man and nature and God, and by voicing them in articulate

manner brings that to our understanding which else were
unknown. This is what Matthew Arnold meant when in
phrase somewhat severe-sounding he said that poetry is
"a criticism of life under the conditions fixed for such a

criticismby the laws of poetic truth and beauty;"^ and
Shelley had the same thought when he wrote that " to be a
poet is to apprehend the true and the beautiful. "^ As the
seer sees truly, as his eye is sensitive to the beautiful, he is
^ Introduction to "Lyrical Ballads."

"^
"Poetry and Imagination."
' "Handbook of Poetics."
* "The Study of Poetry.
* "A Defense of Poetry."
fitted to occupy the choice seat in the Interpreter's House.

Today as never before, with men groping among material
things, seeking for they know not what, today with its
unrest and its cries for relief from oppressions, the poet is
needed to see truth and interpret the meanings of life to us
all.
(d) Imagination is a fourth element of poetry. Leigh

Hunt, answering the question "What is Poetry?" in his
volume so entitled, gives a category of six aspects of imagi-
nation, and whole treatises have been written without ex-

hausting its scope. But chiefly we understand it to be the
faculty of forming images, and this is the poet's vocation.
Samuel Johnson once said that poetry was the art of "call-
ing imagination to the help of reason," and Blair, upon

whose rhetorical foundations all nineteenth-century critics
have built, conceived poetry to be " the language of passion
or of enlivened imagination," while Shelley saw it to be
"in a general sense . . the expression of the imagi-
"
nation.
The earliest critic whose work is read today is Aristotle.
"Poetry," he wrote in his Poetics, "is imitation, or an

imitative art." In this view Francis Bacon shared.
"Poesie, " said he also, "filleth the imagination." So by
imitation these great minds doubtless meant imagery,
"the art of employing words in such a manner as to pro-
"^
duce an illusion on the imagination.
The language of poetry is "vitally metaphorical;"^ by
it poetry institutes noble and striking comparisons, sends
1 Macaulay, "Essay on Milton."

* Shelley,"A Defense of Poetry."
"
out the eye of the soul into the world of things seen and un-
seen, establishes points of contact for our understandings,
conceives —that is, gives birth to —thoughts and emotions
which it in turn interprets to men. "I saw the heart of
man," it says, "and it is like unto this." In a word, the

poet's imitative imagery, untrammeled by laws and
statutes, sees visions and dreams dreams which are more
just than justice and more true than science.
Sidney Lanier has beautifully expressed the poet's use

of imagery when he says that a "harmonious union of soul
and body, of spirit and nature, of essence and form, is pro-
moted by the nature-metaphor, which reveals with wonder-
ful force how these two, united from of old, still have new
points of sweet and thrilling contact, and still adorn and
complement each other. Spirit needs form, and finds it in
nature, which is formal; nature needs life, and finds it in
spirit, which is life-giving. Never be these two sundered!

Forever may the nature-metaphor stand a mild priest,
and marry them, and marry them, and marry them
again, and loose them to the free air as mated doves that
nestle and build and bring forth mildnesses and meek-
nesses and Christ-loves in men's hearts!" ^
(e) Utterance is a further element of poetry. As Sted-

man put it, poetry is "vocal. " Human speech is its natu-
ral exponent, words form its music. Some one has said that
poetry is "the beautiful representation of the beautiful,
given in words. " What is thought and felt and discerned
and imaged must be translated into language. Many
* " Music and Poetry.
"
lO THE ART OF VERSIFICATION
there are who feel but cannot sing, while more live in songs
sung by other voices. For both of these the poet has a

ministry : to him it is given to utter the unuttered —to ex-
press life. Go to your favorite poet, and you will find that
he is speaking to you, singing to you —even uttering for

you your inmost self.
(0 Rhythm is the sign manual of poetry's outward form.

Shelley in his ''Defense of Poetry" has admirably phrased
this need for a patterned, recurrent form:
" Sounds as well as thoughts have relation both between
each other and towards that which they represent, and a

perception of the order of those relations has always been
found connected with a perception of the order of the rela-
tions of thoughts. Hence the language of poets has ever
affected a certain uniform and harmonious recurrence of
sound, without which it were not poetry, and which is
scarcely less indispensable to the communication of its

influence than the words themselves, without reference
to that peculiar order.
Rhythm is sensed from nature. Sound and movement
and regularity of succession produce harmony, under the
best conditions, and harmony is the suitable dress of
poetry. " Musical thought "is how Carlyle denominated it.
On this question opinions have varied decidedly. Sir

Philip Sidney, in his "Apologie for Poetrie, " asserted that
verse was not essential to poetry, while so scientific a mod-
em as Hegel insisted that " meter is the first and only con-
dition absolutely demanded by poetry. " Between these
amazing extremes stood the oft-quoted Shelley, who be-
lieved that poetry must be rhythmical, though not neces-
"
THE NATURE OF POETRY II
sarily metrical —a position which seems to us to be correct.

More than the harmonious, vibrating sequence of beautiful
sounds we may not demand as an essential, however we
may admire and approve full metrical form. Archbishop
Whately's dictum that poetry must employ "elegant,
decorated language in meter" is true in most instances,
but scarcely imiversal enough to be accepted as a law.
(g) Beauty is an element so well recognized as scarcely

to need either demonstration or the confirmatory pro-
nouncement of Poe: '*I would define, in brief, the poetry
of words as the rhythmical creation of beauty."^ Here

we have a fine suggestion that the beauty of poetry must
consist not alone in the adornment of language, but in the
presence of the ideal both in substance and in manner.
(h) Loftiness, or, in its highest expression, sublimity,

has been recognized as an essential element of poetry ever
since Plato spoke of it poetically as "the language of the
gods." Ruskin's definition was by no means satisfying,
but the one element of loftiness he enforced most effec-
tively: Poetry is "the presentment, in musical form, to
the imagination, of noble grounds for the noble emo-

tions. "2 The same high thought was in the mind of Alfred
Austin when he expressed it as "a transfiguration of life.
And of poetry Goethe says: "Like the air balloon, it lifts
us, together with the ballast which is attached to us, into

higher regions, and lets the confused labyrinths of the earth
""*
lie developed before us, as in a bird's-eye view.
' "The Poetic Principle."
- "English Prosody."
' "The Human Tragedy."
* " Dichtung und Wahrheit. "
" " " "
(i) Delight is another quality of poetry which applies as

well to him who sings because he loves to sing, as to him
who is happy in his listening. Coleridge tells us that poetry
proposes "for its immediate object pleasure and not
truth. "^ Horace, however, says that poetry is "that
which is intended for profit and delight."^ Wordsworth
believed that it was the business of the poet to give
pleasure. " Nor, " says he, " let this necessity of producing
immediate pleasure be considered a degradation of the

poet's art. It is far othervvase. It is an acknowledgment
of the beauty of the universe. "^ And Landor writes that
"all the imitative arts have delight for their principal
object; the first of these is poetry.
(j) Profit is, finally, the imquestioned result, though

rarely the purpose, of all true poetry. In this quaint
phrase Sir Philip Sidney expressed his extreme view: "It
is the fayning notable images of vertues, vices, or what
els, with that delightfuU teaching which must be the right
describing note to know a poet by. " Horace said that "a
poet should instruct, or please, or both.
Even those who perfectly agree with these classic author-
ities would scarcely say that all poetry is didactic, for the
teaching we receive must be the by-product of truth,
beauty, power, and emotion. Yet nothing humorous or
serious of true poetic quality can come to perfect utterance
but it leaves its profitable impress upon the hearer, for
"a merry heart doeth good like a medicine" as truly as
' "Biographia Literaria.

^ "Ars Poetica.
* "Lyrical Ballads."
3
the thrusts of satire or the pangs of tragedy may teach us

needed lessons. None the less, poetry is not chiefly "for
profit."
The ten elements of poetry, then, would seem to be:
Thought, Emotion, Interpretation, Imagination, Utterance,
Rhythm, Beauty, Loftiness, Delight and Profit.
J. Poetry and Verse
In all the foregoing we have assumed a real distinction
between true poetry and mere verse. Poetry is a spirit,

verse is its outward form. Poetry is born, verse is made.
Poetry is emotion, verse is gesture. Each has its standards,
its limitations, its appreciators, and its uses; and —who
shall tell? — those who today become skilled in the tricks of
verse-making may use that skill tomorrow to utter some

pure note of poetry. The whole range of creation spreads
before the bard wherefrom to choose his materials. No
theme is taboo. Touched by his magician's wand the com-
monplace is glorified, labor becomes kingly, tragedy
emerges from the market-place, beauty breathes amidst
the soot of the forge. Life is the poet's theme, and the
poet's crown.
Exercises for Class Use and Self-Instruction
1. Pick out the elements of poetry according to each of

the definitions by Alden, Hunt, Stedman, Courthope, and
Mackail.
2. Do any of these definitions seem to you to lack
any essential elements? If so, name the elements and
14 THE ART OF VERSIPICATION
give your reasons for thinking they should be included in

a full definition.
3. Criticise the present authors' definition.

4. Define emotion.
5. Name as many different functions of the imagination
as you can. Illustrate.
6. Distinguish between imagination and fancy.

7. Select any long poem of distinction and point out
evidences of each of the ten elements of poetry.
8. Make a list of the general subjects or themes treated
in six poems of distinction.
9. Make a list of original themes which occur to you as

being suitable for short poems. Remember that a theme
for a poem may consist of a single idea.
10. Make a list of original themes suitable for long
poems.
11. Select a so-called poem which you consider to be
merely verse.
1 2. Give your reasons, and say if you think there is room
in the world for mere verse.
13. Write a paragraph on the proper subject matter
of poetry.
14. Make a short list of themes which you consider

to be unsuitable for poetic treatment. Give reasons in
each case.
CHAPTER II
THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF POETRY
Let learned Greece in any of her manifold sciences be able to

show me one book before Musaeus, Homer, and Hesiod, all three
nothing else but poets. Nay, let any history be brought that can
say any writers were there before them, if they were not men of
the same skill, as Orpheus, Linus, and some others are named,
who, having been the first of that country that made pens
deliverers of their knowledge to their posterity, may justly chal-
lenge to be called their fathers in learning. For not only in time
—
they had this priority although in itself antiquity be venerable
— ^but went before them as causes, to draw with their charming
sweetness the wild untamed wits to an admiration of knowledge.
So as Amphion was said to move stones with his poetry to build
—
Thebes, and Orpheus to be listened to by beasts, indeed stony
and beastly people. So among the Romans were Livius Androni-
cus and Ennius; so in the Italian language the first that made it
aspire to be a treasure-house of science were the poets Dante,
Boccace, and Petrarch; so in our English were Gower and
Chaucer, after whom, encouraged and delighted with their excel-
lent foregoing, others have followed to beautify our mother-
tpngue, as well in the same kind as in other arts.
—
Sir Philip Sidney, An Apologie for Poetrie.
The history of poetry is the history of civihzation. For

this reason, an inquiry into the causes which, through
successive ages, have directed the imaginations of poets
into channels of metrical com-position, would lead us very
close to the springs of all art and all learning. But, more
specifically — for the foregoing is too general a statement to
l6 THE ART OF VERSIFICATION
be illuminating historically —when we, more and more,

press in toward the heart of poetic origins, we shall find
that as poetry arose and took form in each land and moved
from Orient to Occident, it was shaped and colored by the
national genius of each successive coimtry that at once
contributed to its rise and progress and received the be-
nignant heritage which genuine poetry confers upon any
people that fosters its indwelling. This, then, indicates
the thesis of this necessarily brief and summarial account.
Though the precise origins of poetry are shrouded in
prehistoric mist, we may be tolerably certain that just as
soon as human utterance began to be amplified and made
more effective by the addition of images, poetry was born.
Its use among primitive peoples today is a fair indication
of its first functions — that of communal or group expression.
Afterward came the development of the individual poet
with his increasingly personal expression, culminating in
the lyrical form.
/. The Origin of Poetry
It is easy to picture a wild tribe dancing about its fetich
and chanting some crude rhythmical sentences in honor of

the god, in triumph over an enemy, in prayer for help, in
mourning for some poignant loss. As these metrical and
musical words were often repeated, they took on fixed
forms, and so the rude tribal ritual was composed, and
crystallized into a folk form. Naturally enough, tradition
ascribed the gift of these poems to the gods themselves.
Such was the origin of the primeval ballad, and the epic
poem whose finished verses, ages later, were recited in
7
THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF POETRY 1
market-place and camp, in palace and in garden, wherever

the Greek tongue brought the civilization of that broad
colonizing nation. And quite in the same way the poetic
tales, epics, and sagas of East and North developed also.
Presently, the poet, who had secured his training by com-

piling and arranging the heroic poems which were the prop-
erty of his entire nation, began to invent story-poems and
recite them for public entertainment —as well as for his
own private gain. From this it was only a short step to
the creation of poems expressive of the singer's personal

aspirations —and so the lyric was engendered. Thus
music and dancing and poetry share a common ances-
try, and that ancestry a mingling of religion, war, and
community life.
Just how deeply the poets of Asia —particularly those

of India and Palestine — left their impress upon Greek
life and character it is impossible to say, but certain definite
marks are not wanting to prove that Asiatic conceptions
of life, standards of conduct, and theistic beliefs influenced
Greek ideals very potently. But which land was the
earliest in coming to national poetic expression, no one has
yet conclusively demonstrated.
Everywhere music, dancing, poetry, and oratory have
preceded prose in what may be termed the artistic develop-
ment of a people, and undeveloped races today are inter-
esting examples of the persistence of this same order of

growth.
2. The Spread of Poetry as Art
The almost coincident rise of the Greek epic and the

Hebrew national poetry marked the definite genesis of the
8
literatures of these emotional peoples. And both laid
their impress upon that newer nation whose conquering

heel they felt —Rome. Next, as Roman domination
carried her customs and learning to the provinces, the
savage poetry of subjugated races was modified, and what

we may call classical standards appeared in the remoter
lands. And successively in France, England, Spain, Ger-
many, and throughout all Europe, this process was worked
out, just as centuries later the Revival of Learning
carried classical standards to the ultimate parts of the
earth.
But if the growth of poetic expression in all lands has
been from the communal to the personal —that is, from the
crude ritualistic and warlike and hunting chant through
legendary, epic, and dramatic poetry, down to the milder
and entirely individualistic lyric —the subject matter and

the ethical ideals of poetry have undergone a similar evo-
lution.
Moral ideals reached a higher, because a more unselfish,
plane much earlier in Judea than in Greece. But the

austere Jew was ever a lonely and remote soul and kept
his pure ideals much to himself; while the beauty-loving,
joyous Greek diffused his life wherever he went. So it
came about that when Rome conquered Judea, the Jew

brought no large teaching to his subjugator, while when
Greece felt the yoke, she subtly captured her captor in
every conceivable form of life. Thus it was not until,
centuries later, the religion of Jesus spread through the

Empire that the Judaistic conceptions of morals began to
touch cosmopolitan Rome. Thenceforward, European
9
poetry, in common with all artistic expression, began to

exhibit moral impulse.
Greek poetry was true to our dictum — it mirrored Greek
life. A refined sensuality, a delicate appreciation of the
beautiful, a worshipful pursuit of joy, an exaltation of the
body, a profound yet light-hearted stoicism —these were
the Grecian tones. The early philosophy of Rome was
much the same, though a deeper moral consciousness was
there; but Rome eventually became pessimistic, and
plunged into excesses, all the while calling her mad whirl
Life. Even the infusion of Christianity did not avail to
put lofty and heroic ideals into the moribund body — for
this, the added element of the North was required with its
hardihood and its vital, though pagan, religious mysticism.
J. Poetry Today
Thus the poetry of all these lands most clearly reflects

their varying and climbing and nothing
ethical standards,
is more patent today than that our present age is mirrored
as completely and as perfectly in its poetry as in any other
of its varied forms of artistic expression. Every age has
had its despairing prophets. Elijah repined in ignorance
of the four thousand faithful ones; Edmund Spenser, in
the very brightest dawn of English poetry, bewailed its
deepening night; and plainly may be heard today the
lament of those who see in the larger attention given to
fiction, history, and science, the certain presage of disaster
for poesy. But if the epic days are gone, because com-
munal life is too self-conscious for its reproduction in heroic
verse, the poetic drama is pluming itself for higher flights,

and the lyrical poem was never so vitally concerned with
the problems and expressions of its age as it is today.
Poetry is doubtless feeling the depressing damps of com-
mercialism and noxious morals, but it is also inbreathing
the higher airs of a dawning era of human brotherhood and

love.
1. Why, in your opinion, has the earliest expression of
every literature been marked by the rhythm and repeti-

tion characteristic of poetic form?
2. Briefly trace the progress of poetry geographically

from east to west.
3. As they mirror various races and religions, name
some of the differentiating characteristics of Asiatic,
Greek, and Roman poetry.
4. What single influence has done most to raise the
moral ideals of poetry?

5. Would you consider the communal chant of primi-
tive races, with its many impromptu variations, proof that

the poetic form of expression is inherent in mankind?
6. Can you associate this with any practises of children
today?
7. Is oratory or prose the more closely related to poetry?
Why?
8. Write about one hundred words upon the influence
of the Revival of Learning on literature.
9. What is the present state of poetry (a) in America?

(b) In Great Britain?
10. Are present-day influences favorable or unfavorable
to the advance of poetry? Give reasons supporting your
answer.
CHAPTER III
THE LANGUAGE OF POETRY

The spoken word in poetry has for its direct symbol the printed
word. What is true of the one will, therefore, presumably be
true of the other. And this is so. Language as uttered sounds
does not of itself make poetry any more than the words on the
printed page make poetry. Language is the accepted medium
of expression for poetry, just as marble is for sculpture, or pig-
ments and canvas are for painting; and without language, it is
safe in general to say, there could be no poetry.
— H. R. Fairchild, The Making of Poetry.
The word of the Poet by whom the deeps

of the world are stirr'd.
The music that robes it in language beneath

and beyond the word.
—Tennyson, The Wreck.
Lest we begin by accepting the false notion that the
function of words in poetry is confined to their meanings,
let us at once assert the contrary. Succeeding chapters
will show that verbal sounds, both apart from and con-
bined with the sense, are most important factors in poetical

and rhythmical expression. Just now, however, we must
examine words especially with their meanings in mind,
casting only a passing glance at their sounds apart from
their intellectual content.
Poe asserted that words were sufficient to express any

idea, and in this he was supported by distinguished author-
ities. But surely there are thoughts beyond the power of
THE LANGUAGE OF POETRY 23
any words even to connote —imaginings which picture

" the light that never was, on sea or land, " the tree "which
bare twelve manner of fruits," golden streets which yet
are crystal clear. True, such extra-natural conceptions
seem to be hazy and unformed, but that is doubtless be-
cause the minds which envisioned them could not find
words to set forth the complete concepts —language has
not yet found wherewithal to embody thoughts which are
beyond the dimensions of our everyday lives.
Nevertheless, the poet is confined to the use of words

as a medium for his message, and when the three-fold
power of collocated words is found at its highest, that is,
when meaning, sound, and movement are balanced and

blended, we have a well-nigh perfect instrument of ex-
pression.
/. The Choice of Words
Does the vocabulary of the poet differ from that of the
prose writer? Yes, for it is both more extensive and more

limited. And yet the beginner is the one who soonest
turns to high-flown, "fancy" language, in the mistaken
idea that poetry concerns itself with strutting and unusual
words. Examine the quotations cited in this volume and
make actual test of the kinds of words used by our great
English poets, and the results may prove surprising. True*
poetry is lofty, but not toplof tical ; it is high in thought,
but high-sounding words cannot elevate a commonplace
idea.
In the main, therefore, the vocabulary of a poet does

not differ from that of a good prose writer. Different
;
types of poetry call for a choice of words in harmony with

the thought expression, just as in oratory, in prose, and in
everyday speech; and it is this nice adjustment of lan-
guage to thought which forms the first and deepest basis
for good poesy. The gentle movement of the pastoral
poem will naturally flow on in smooth and unimpassioned

words — likeliest those not too remote from common usage
and understanding. Such we find in "The Folk-Mote by
the River," a narrative poem by William Morris:
It was up in the morn we rose betimes

From the hall-floor hard by the row of limes.
It was but John the Red and I,
And we were brethren of Gregory

And Gregory the Wright was one
Of the valiant men beneath the sun,
And what he bade us that we did,
For ne'er he kept his coimsel hid.
Here the only word not used ordinarily in prose is
neêr. Betimes, brethren and bade are less commonly

used words, but nevertheless quite prosaic. Even heroic
poetry of the most impassioned type uses few words not
found in good prose, as a careful examination will show.
In what, then, does the choice of words for poetic uses
differ from that of prose? In two particulars: In poetry
we find number of (a) Suggestive Words, that
a considerable
is, words which connote more than they ordinarily mean,
picture words which evoke a whole scene or suggest a com-
parison without actually expressing it. Such words must
— — —
be used not too freely, lest the verse give an impression of

over-ornamentation and consequent heaviness and arti-
ficiality. After all, Simplicity is the handmaiden of
Beauty.
Expressions like the embattled farmers, the multitudinous
seas incarnadine, the vernal year, and shouldering billows,
are full of suggestive richness. Similarly, the use of sug-
gestive substantives is much more frequent in poetry than

in prose Erin for Ireland, sail for vessel, and the like.
(b) Variant Words are also characteristic of poetry. Of

these are the "solemn" forms of direct address thee, thy,
etc., and the formal pourest, heareth, and the like. Then,
too, we find contractions such as e'en, oft, starr'd, list, mount,
as distinguished from mere colloquial contractions like
don't and she'll. Other important poetic variants are

archaic, obsolete, and obsolescent words, such as erst,
idlesse, and thither; and unusual possessive forms, such as

the law's delay.
But even more important, though perhaps less frequent,

than any of the foregoing variant types, are original and
little-used compounds. Homer is so rich in these fresh
word-pairs that we have come to term them Homeric
Compounds. Shields smooth, beautiful, brazen, well-
hammered, is one of his notable groupings, equalled only

by his laughter-loving Aphrodite, and far-darting Apollo.
Shakespeare was the supreme latter-time artist in this in-
ventive realm, with his always-wind-obeying-deep, and many

another. Carlyle also has contributed many compounds
which while first used in his prose have found their way
later into the poetry of others fire-eyed Defiance, much-
suffering man, and the frost-bath of Poverty, are good ex-

amples.
The constant expansion of our English tongue by new
coinage, revival of archaic forms, and both adoptions and
adaptations from foreign languages, is a fruitful field for
the poet wherefrom to gather fresh words for his verses.

Surely with so wide a variety for his choice he will wish to
avoid words which are unalterably stamped as technical
(steam-gauge), colloquial (canH), commonplace (handker-
chief), or ridiculous (humped) — of course we are speaking
now of poetry, and not of nonsense verse.
2. The Grouping of Words
But much more in the grouping of words than in their

selection singly does poetry differ from prose.
(a) Sentence forms are often abbreviated and the rules
of grammar in that particular abrogated, as Never night
like this, in which the verb and the article are omitted.
Inverted sentences are frequent, like Hushed lay the sleep-

ing earth. But care must be used not to use inverted forms
from mere caprice, as the tyro often does, thinking so to
affect the poet's livery. The danger is that the occasional
obscurity in great poets, which is the result of too great
compression or too refined and remote suggestion, may be
regarded as an essential of poetry rather than a defect, as
it certainly is.
(b) Freshness in word grouping is no less important in
the whole poetic line than it is in the making of apt com-

pounds. Indeed, so precious is the space of every letter in
! —
THE LANGUAGE OF POETRY 2^
a perfect line of verse that compression and suggestive

quality are the two prime factors of word arrangement.
Each word should bear its full part in the line —each word
should not only convey its own idea, but enhance its pre-
ceding and succeeding fellow, for an ideal line of poetry
is not a chain of so many links, but a galaxy of mutually
reflecting gems. How distressing, then, are those evident
attempts at padding, like her face so jair, which disclose
that a line needs to be filled out and not an idea wherewith

to upholster it
Consider the mutual shining of each word in these lines

—consider the compressed and efficient power of every
phase of the poet's choice and arrangement of his words:
Thou too, hoar Mount with thy

! sky-pointing peaks,
Oft from whose feet the avalanche, imheard.
Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene
Into the depths of clouds, that veil thy breast
Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! thou
That as I raise my head, a while bowed low
In adoration, upward from thy base
Slow travelling with dim eyes suflFused with tears,
Solemnly seemest, like a vapory cloud.

To rise before me—Rise, O ever rise.
Rise like a cloud of incense from the earth I
Thou kingly spirit throned among the hills.

Thou dread ambassador from Earth to Heaven,
Great Hierarch! tell thou the silent skies,
And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun.

Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.
—Coleridge, Hymn before Sunrise, in the Vale of Cha-
mouni. ,
%
In this example we have only a very few unusual words,

yet such is their arrangement that they are siu-charged
with bigness. The whole stanza throbs with great emo-
tions —the thoughts tower huge, not a single word or
group of words but connotes the large spirit of the poem.
The language is simple, yet it deals with vast spaces, un-
measured heights, and things uncontained by human
limits. Here, then, is the secret of poetic language —words
perfectly expressive of poetic thoughts.
In Coleridge's "Hymn" we see not only the choice of
poetic words, the poetic grouping of those words, and the
poetic use of common words, but we discern a third great
element in the language of poetry:
5. Imagery
"The business of poetry," writes Macaulay, "is with

images, and not with words." "Metaphors come of love
rather than of thought," says Sidney Lanier. "They

arise in the heart as vapors ; they gather themselves in the
brain as shapes; they then emerge from lip, from pen,
from brush, from chisel, from violin, as full works, as crea-
tions, as art."
Here is true doctrine. Poetry can no more exist without

imagery than can the poet sing without visions. The
poetic soul in poetic mood sees nothing singly — all life
comes to him in dualities, in complexities, and the inner

relationships of life which are imseen by the crass eye are
disclosed to him because he is a seer. His vocation is to
discern and set forth the similitudes of things unseen; he
—
must, because it is in his heart to do so, reveal to the rest

of us the spiritual, the high, the healing, the up-pointing
likenesses of common things, so that we may know that

the lowliest beings which tread the earth may have their
commimion in the heights. So, too, must he translate

the meaning of the difl&cult, the remote, the forbidding,
until it is an open language that the simple may read. He
will be a seer of beautiful and truthful and inspiring
images, therefore, or he will be no poet —no "maker," as

the poet is.
Now all this may sound sublimated and impracticable.

Perhaps it is, for the poet is not first of all practical. But
the artist uses not only tools but earthy pigments and
cold marbles for his creations; and the poet uses words
for his evocations. His imagery is, if not according to law,
at least wrought in ways we have come to understand.
The spirit of poetry we may not define, but its manner is
more readily understood. We know that when the mind

institutes a comparison and phrases it in words, the result
is a figure—a turn— of speech, and the poetic mind will
not be content to dream, to see, his comparisons, but will

seek for words wherewith to embody them. This is what
Edmund Clarence Stedman says^:
"What I may call the constant, the habitual^ imagina-
tion of a true poet is shown by his instinct for words,
those keys which all may clatter, and which yield their
music to so few. He finds the inevitable word or phrase,
unfoimd before, and it becomes classical in a moment.
The power of words and the gift of their selection are un-
* "The Nature and Elements of Poetry," p. 240.

3© THE ART OF VERSIFICATION
comprehended by writers who have all trite and hackneyed

phrases at the pen's end. The imagination begets original
diction, suggestive epithets, verbs implying extended
scenes and events, phrases which are a delight, and which,
as we say, speak volumes, single notes which establish the
dominant tone."
The practice of phrasing images with delicacy and pre-

cision is essential for good poetic expression, hence the
importance of a working knowledge of at least the com-
monest figures of speech cannot be overestimated.
Some of the most frequently used figurative forms are
appended, both in simple definition and example.
Simile: A formal comparison of unlike objects, employ-

ing such words of comparison as like, as, like unto,
etc.
True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,

As those move easiest who have learnt to dance.
—Pope, Essay on Criticism.
The quality of mercy is not strained.

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath.
—Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice.
Metaphor: An informal comparison of unlike objects

by declaring or implying that one thing is another, without
the use of comparing words.
; ; 1
Yes, Love indeed is light from heaven;

A spark of that immortal fire
With angels shared, by Alia given,

To lift from earth our low desire.
— Byron, The Giaour.
Antithesis: A use of contrasts in thought and expres-

sion.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,

Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
—Tennyson, In Memoriam.
Metonymy: The use of the name of one object when
another is clearly implied —as the cause for the effect, or
the reverse; the container for the thing contained ; or the

sign for the thing it stands for.
The bright death quivered at the victim's throat

Touch 'd; and I knew no more.
—
Tennyson, A Dream of Fair Women.
Synecdoche: Closely akin to metonymy, synecdoche

makes some important part of an object stand for the
whole, or the whole for the part.
The gilded parapets were crown'd

With faces, and the great tower fill'd with eyes
Up to the summit, and the trumpets blew.
—Tennyson, Pelleas and Etarre.
— —
Apostrophe: A turning aside to address the absent as

though present, the dead as though Hving, the inani-
mate as though animate, etc.
Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, — roll!

—Byron, Childe Harold.
Liftup your heads, ye gates; and, ye everlasting portals,

Be ye lift up! Behold, the Worthies are there to receive
him,
They who, in later days or in elder ages, ennobled
Britain's dear name.
—SouTHEY, A Vision of JvAgment.
Vision: Treating the absent or the distant as though

present or within the vision.
I see the wealthy miller yet.

His double chin, his portly size,
* * *
In yonder chair I see him sit,
Three fingers round the old silver cup

I see his gray eyes twinkle yet
—
At his own jest gray eyes lit up
With summer lightnings of a soul
So full of summer warmth, so glad,
So healthy, sound, and clear and whole.
His memory scarce can make me sad.
—
Tennyson, The Miller's Daughter.
—"— —
I see the foam about thy keel,
I hear the bell struck in the night,

I see the cabin window bright,
I see the sailor at the wheel.
—Tennyson, In Memoriam.
Personification: Attributing the qualities of life to

the inanimate.
Armour rusting in his halls

On the blood of Clifford calls;
"Quell the Scot," exclaims the Lance
"Bear me to the heart of France,"
Is the longing of the Shield
"Tell thy name, thou trembling Field;

Field of death, where'er thou be,
Groan thou with our victory.
—Wordsworth, Brougham Castle.
Hyperbole: Exaggeration for literary effect.
So frowned the mighty combatants that Hell

Grew darker at their frown.
—Milton, Paradise Lost.
Irony: A form of satire in which a hidden meaning

is suggested, either by declaring the opposite of what is
felt to be the truth, or by hinting at a condition of

affairs not creditable to the subject.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest,
(For Brutus is an honorable man,

So are they all, all honorable men),
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.

He was my friend, faithful and just to me;
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honorable man.
—Shakespeare, Julius Ccssar.
Exclamation: Exclamation for literary effect. The

chief factor is the inverted sentence order.
How wonderful is Death,

Death and his brother Sleep!
—Shelley, Qtieen Mob.
Interrogation: A question put not for information
but for rhetorical effect.
what we love, or how we

Is it love.
That makes true good?

— George Eliot, The Spanish Gypsy.
Litotes: Making a statement by denying the reverse
of it.
One of the few, the immortal names

That were not born to die.
—
Halleck, Marco Bozzaris.
Chiasm: A reversal of poetic order in successive lines.

Our very hopes belied our fears.
Our fears our hopes belied;
We thought her dying when she slept.
And sleeping when she died.
—
Hood, The Death Bed.
! !
Oxymoron: Joining words which are contradictory

when taken literally.
Beautiful tyrant, fiend angelical!

Dove-feathered raven ! wolvish-ravening lamb
A damned saint, an honorable villain
— Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet.
1. In prose, try to suggest a poetic idea which words

cannot fully express.
2. Examine about fifty lines of any well-known poem
and note {a) the number of "poetic" words, {b) the number
of common words.
3. See if you can find any words used in a standard poem
which in your opinion do not belong in serious poetry, and
suggest better words.
4. Give prose examples of your own making of all the
figures of speech named on pages 31-32.
X 5. {a) What is a trite, or hackneyed, expression? (6)
Illustrate, (c) Recast so as to improve,

X, 6. Explain the advantages of a new expression over a
hackneyed one.
7. What classes of words should a poet seldom use in his
poetry?
8. By quoting, show how the language of true poetry
may differ from that of nonsense verse.
X 9. Giveatleast three original examples of the following:
(a) Suggestive words, {h) Compounds of the Homeric
type.
10. Take any ordinary poem and, without altering the

rhymes, number of syllables in a line, and the location of
accent, substitute other words, not with a view to "im-

proving" the poem, but solely for the sake of enlarging
your vocabulary.
11. Make a list of twenty-five common words and set
opposite each a poetic synonym.

X 12. Invent — in prose — the freshest possible compari-
sons, using varied figurative forms, for (a) an ocean wave,
(b) a baby's smile, (c) a soldier's frown, (d) a bird's song,
—and at least six other things of your own choosing.
; ;
CHAPTER IV
THE ANALYSIS OF VERSE

Verse may be rhythmical; it may be merely alliterative; it
may, like the French, depend wholly on the (quasi) regular

recurrence of the rhyme; or, like the Hebrew, it may consist in
the strangely fanciful device of repeating the same idea. It does
not matter on what principle the law is based, so it be a law.
— Robert Louis Stevenson, On Some Technical Elements of
Style in Literature.
Trochee trips from long to short

From long to long in solemn sort
Slow Spondee stalks, strong foot, yet ill able
Ever to come up with Dactyl trisyllable.
Iambics march from short to long
With a leap and a bound the swift Anapaests throng;
One syllable long with one short at each side
Amphibrachys hastes with a stately stride;
First and last being long, middle short, Amphimacer
Strikes his thundering hoofs like a proud high-bred racer.
—
Coleridge.
The earliest poetry was born of music and dancing; and

although we often forget this origin, sound and movement
are still the two elements that govern verse. Somewhat
more narrowly than Mr. Stevenson, we may therefore lay
down this law: Verse must consist of a succession of
pleasing —or at least peculiarly expressive —sounds, set
in a pattern of rhythmic time. Hence the value of both
sound and movement in their relations to verse will be
fully developed as these studies progress.
I. The Relation of Spirit to Form
If you wish to turn your philosophy, or your patriotism,

or your religion, into poetry, well and good, but the fact
that your philosophy is deep, or yoiu" patriotism lofty, or
your religion lovely, will not of necessity make your poetry
so —the spirit must be clothed upon with body, and the
body must be of form suitable for the appareling of so
deep, lofty, and lovely a spirit. The highest poetic ideas,
if clumsily expressed, can never take their place as poetry,

for poetry is not only the spirit of the ideal, but it is the
spirit of the ideal expressed suitably and effectively. This,
then, is why we insist upon a knowledge, and even a mas-
tery, of the forms of verse —those poetic ideas are most
effective which are so clothed with language, and arranged
in such verbal order, as to harmonize spirit and form per-
fectly. In technical language, good poetry consists of good
poetic ideas couched in good verse —that is, arranged in
a succession of pleasing syllables, and ordered in rhythmic
sequence.
The expression "pleasing syllables" is used advisedly
because the pleasure derived from poetry may in certain
instances be independent of its meaning. At first this
appears to be heresy, but it is true. For example, it is
possible for a person with no knowledge of German to feel

a distinct delight in reading Heine's lyrics, and for another,
ignorant of Greek, to enjoy a recitation from Homer or

Sophocles. It is apparent, of course, that this is due to the
musical nature of verse. Naturally, too, where the words
are vmderstood, and where the sound, meaning, and
THE ANALYSIS OF VERSE 39
rhythm enhance one another, the pleasure is highest; but

when only the sonorous and rhythmical qualities of poetry
are felt, the pleasure may be none the less really experi-
enced. On the other hand, the pleasure derived from an

imperfect apprehension of a poetic idea —as when it is but
vaguely in the mind, badly expressed in sound and move-
ment, or crudely recited — will be inferior to the enjoy-
ment derived from the harmonious, sonorous, and rhyth-
mical expression of a lofty poetic sentiment: in other
words, from good poetry.
For the writing of successful verse, three things are
necessary: an idea, emotion, and technical expression; and

in good poetry these three are one. The two former are not
always to be had for the asking, but technical expression
may be studied and cultivated.
It is obvious that individuals vary greatly in their sensi-
tiveness to the value of words and the sounds of words,
just as one man may have an ear for music and another be
unable to recognize an air after hearing it twenty times;
or one person may readily distinguish delicate shades of
color and- another be color-blind. The poetic equipment
should include a natural sense of language, but the average
person may be made to recognize good word-grouping when
it is pointed out; he may learn by analysis why it is good,
and if he has interest and enthusiasm he will want to try to
make something similar himself. Given poetic ideas and
the emotions arising from them, there should be no excuse
for the verse-writer's expressing these ideas badly, for
that means either ignorance or laziness —or both. There-
fore, having considered the nature of poetry as thought
and emotion, we are now to give attention to the means of
its adequate expression.
2. Meter
Meter, or the form in which poetry is cast, means

measure. Greek verse was measured by the number of
foot-beats forwards and backwards in the dance. The tirrie
required for the rise and fall of one foot was very naturally
called a joot. Since the poem was chanted or sung as an
accompaniment to the dance —
which, as we have seen,
was generally an important element in primitive religious
ceremonials — the syllables marked by the stress of the

voice necessarily corresponded to the beat of the foot in
marking time. The measures were named from the
arrangement of long and short syllables. The iambus
was a short, then a long syllable; the trochee a long,
then a short syllable; the anapcest two short syllables,
then a long one; the dactyl a long, then two short
syllables. These, with other more complicated combi-
nations, must be examined in detail later.
English poetry followed, in a ruder way, the same line of

development as the Greek; it too was bom of music and
dancing, and arose, in dim Teutonic times, in the solemn
chant which accompanied the march or dance in primitive
religious rites. The rhyming games of children are a sur-
vival of the primitive instinct to associate foot-movements
with chant or song.
When verse in England ceased to be a spontaneous
singing, and the learned tried to reduce it to rule, they
naturally attempted to apply the classical system of

1
measurement to English poetry. But at once they en-

coimtered a difficulty. The rules of Greek and Latin
meters were based on the combination and contrast of
long and short syllables, according to the length of time
required to pronounce them. This quality of length we
call
J. Quantity
A long syllable was counted as equal to two short ones,

in the classics; but in English, there was no such rule.
Although as a matter of fact all English syllables do not

take quite the same length of time to pronounce — the
syllables of viol for instance being shorter than those
of landmark — it was not possible to base a system of
meter on these differences. Poetry was already written,
much of it was beautiful and noble, but when wise men
tried to analyze it they found that the classical system of
measurement would not fit. English meters, they found,
were based, not on quantity, or length of syllables, but on
accent, or stress upon certain syllables, somewhat corres-
ponding to beat in musical measure.
4. Accent
All English words, they saw, could be resolved into syl-

lables, strong or weak, accented or imaccented, rather than
long or short. They therefore divided the lines of English
poetry into feet, counting the English strong syllable as
equal to the Greek long syllable, the English weak syllable
as equal to the Greek short syllable, and adopted the old
classic names, iambic, trochaic, anapaestic, dactylic, etc.,
to describe these measures, or succession of syllables

according to accent.
Let us throw aside for the moment these two systems
based on quantity and accent, and commence with what is
apparently the simplest method of measuring verse —that

of counting syllables.
Take the first stanza of a famous poem, which has been
said to be absolutely perfect in word and workmanship,
Gray's "Elegy in a Coimtry Churchyard."
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, lo

The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea, lo
The plowman homeward plods his weary way, lo
And leaves the world to darkness and to me. lo
If we count the syllables we shall see that there are ten
in each line — all the lines are of exactly the same length.
Is that the reason why the verse sounds so smooth and
regular? It is one reason, but not the only one. Let us
see if we can find another reason.
We know, of course, that all the lines in a poem need not
be, like Gray's, of equal length. If we read the second
stanza of another well-known poem, Longfellow's " Psalm
of Life," we shall see that the first and third lines have
eight syllables each, while the second and fourth lines
number only seven syllables.
Life is real! Life is earnest! 8

And the grave is not its goal; 7
Dust thou art, to dust retumest, 8
Was not spoken of the soul. 7
:
This stanza also reads smoothly. We shall see, then, that

our lines need not all be of equal length. Does the fact
that these lines balance each other, alternating eight

syllables, seven syllables, eight syllables, seven syllables,
make the verse read smoothly? That also is one reason,

but again not the only one.
Take the first stanza of this same poem of Longfellow's,
and we see that the last line does not read quite smoothly
Tell me not in mournful numbers, 8

Life is but an empty dream, 7
For the soul is dead that slumbers, 8
And things are not what they seem. 7
We find a certain awkwardness in this last line if we try

to read it aloud in a rhythmical manner —that is, with
regular succession of accents —because we have to pro-
nounce the initial word "and" with more emphasis than
the sense indicates. It would be possible to take this line
and use it as the initial line of a nonsense stanza as follows^
And things are not what they seem.

And life is naught but a show,
And cats will eat up the cream.
And always it shall be so.
What has happened? The line is exactly the same but

we read it very differently. The time-scheme is com-
pletdy altered. Instead of saying, as in the Longfellow
stanza,
r > t I

"
we find ourselves saying,
We see, then, that in our simple method of measuring

verse by the number of syllables, we must reckon with
something else : that something is accent. To emphasize
its importance we shall use the terms accented or
unaccented syllables instead of strong or weak syllables.
Accent is also sometimes called stress, and sometimes
beat. It is the emphasis which the voice involuntarily places
on certain syllables when pronounced properly in the lan-
guage to which they belong. To the regular recurrence

of accent, half our pleasure in English verse is due. The
place where the accent falls gives the form and
also the name to our meter. Let us read again the first
stanza of Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard" and

mark the
II
The curfew
t
accents.
f
tolls
til
III
the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly

/
The plowman homeward

/
/
III
III
o'er the lea,
plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
We see that every other syllable is accented, beginning

with the second. The accent falls with absolute regularity.
This, then, is the reason that the verse sounds so smooth and
regular. We have found the first great law governing
English verse, accent.
Let us mark the accents in the second stanza of
"A Psalm of Life.

Life
And
t
t
/
I
is real!
the grave
lit
til
t
Life
is
is
not
t
earnest!
its goal;
Dust thou
Was
I It
art, to
not spoken of the soul.

dust returnest,
'
We see that instead of falling on the second syllable, as
in Gray's "Elegy," the accent in the "Psalm of Life"

falls on the first syllable, which reverses the beat and
changes the character of the verse. The accent, however,
falls regularly, and so that the stanza reads smoothly.
The trouble with the line
I I I I
And things are not what they seem,
is that to read it in harmony with the preceding lines, we

have to put the accent on a syllable where it would not
naturally fall in simple speech and according to the mean-
ing.
We therefore see that we must reckon with two kinds of

accent: verse-accent and word-accent, and that in English
poetry the two should normally fall on the same syllable.
>f I. Give in your own words a definition of the metrical

foot.
2. How does the foot in English verse differ from one in

Greek or Latin meter?
X 3. Is it always necessary for a good writer to put the
regular number of syllables in a line? Give reasons.
4. Quote one or more lines that contain less syllables
than their corresponding lines, and say whether in your

opinion the poet omitted syllables purposely, and if so,
why.
X 5- Write a stanza containing one or more words of un-
usual emphasis —as a threat, or a cry of fear—and experi-
ment whether a pause (an omission in the regular meter)
after the important word helps or mars the verse.
Note: The whole subject of Irregularities will be
treated later.
6. Try to find one or more poetic lines which give a dis-
tinctly pleasurable sound independent of the sense.
7. Define (a) meter, (b) quantity, (c) accent.

8. Mark the accents on two varying stanzas from dif-
ferent poems.
9. Try to find an example in which the word-accent

and the verse-accent are not identical — that is, do not fall
on the same syllable.
H 10. Hand in a single short specimen of your own verse,

marking any improvements or changes on the margin, or,
if the poem is printed, on an accompanying sheet.

'
CHAPTER V
THE FOOT
The office of the poet as a teacher of the chorus demanded a
that passed under the term " dancing,
'
practical knowledge of all
including steps, gestures, attitudes, and the various resources of

rhythmical movement. .The very word poet in classi-
. .
cal times often implies the two-fold character of poet and

musician, and in later writers is sometimes used, like our com-
poser, in a strictly limited reference to music.
—S. H. Butcher, Aristotle's Theory of Poetry and Fine Art.
We have said that Greek verse was origmally measured

by the time of the rise and fall of one foot-step forward and
backward in the dance. The term foot therefore came to
mean a group of syllables which could be uttered within

the time of this foot-movement. At least one syllable of
the group was long, corresponding to the thesis, or the
setting down of the foot, and was placed in the verse where
the heat came in the music. This formed accent, or stress,
in the verse. The other syllable or syllables of the group
was short, corresponding to the arsis, or the raising of the
foot, and was less prominent, or imaccented. As English

verse is not divided into long and short syllables, but into
accented and unaccented syllables, the English accented
syllable is considered to represent the Greek long syllable,
and the English unaccented syllable is held to be equal to
the Greek short syllable.
We have said that accent, which is the basis of this foot
division, gives both form and name to English meter. Let

us see some of the forms and names.
I. The Iambus, or Iambic Foot
The cur few tolls the knell of part ing day, lo
tit
| | | |
t t / r /
The low I
ing herd |
winds slow |
ly o'er |
the lea, lo
I >
The plow man home ward plods I

| |
his wea ry way, lo
|
/ t I t I
And leaves |
the world |
to dark |
ness and |
to me. lo
We see that each line of this stanza consists of a regular

succession of alternating unaccented (or weak), and ac-
cented (or strong), syllables. These syllables fall naturally
into groups of two, and each group we call a. foot. The first
syllable in each foot is unaccented, the second is accented.

If we turn to our glossary, we shall see that a foot con-
sisting of two syllables, the first of which is unaccented (or

weak), and the second accented (or strong), is called an
iambus. Gray's "Elegy" is therefore written in iambic

measure.
Other Examples of Iambic Measure
/ t t t
Come live |
with me and be my love.| |
—
I
I
did I
but dream.
I
tit
It
Marlowe, The Passionate
( I nev |
er knew
Shepherd.
What charms |
our stern |
est sea |
son wore.
—Whittier, The Clear Vision.
—" :
THE FOOT 49
He
f
ceased; |
f
and Sa tan stay'd not

|
I
|
*
It
to |
reply.
—Milton, Paradise
[
Lost.
Iambic measure (which may include any number of
syllables from two to fourteen to the line) is the measure

most congenial to the English language, because the native
accent of our speech falls naturally into iambics. Hence,
a very large proportion of English poetry is written in
iambic measure, and this proportion includes both the
simplest and the grandest poems in the language; it is
equally suited to the simple measure of Wordsworth's

"Lucy,"
She dwelt |
alone |
and few could know
|
|
When Lu |
cy ceased |
to be.
and to the stately march of Milton's blank verse, an ex-

cerpt from which follows as the second example.
With head a while inclined,
And who prayed,

eyes fast fixed, he stood, as one
Or some great matter in his mind revolved
At last, with head erect, thus cried aloud :
"Hitherto, Lords, what your commands imposed

I have performed, as reason was, obeying.
Not without wonder or delight beheld;
Now, of my own accord, such other trial
I mean to show you of my strength, yet greater,
As with amaze shall strike all who behold.

This uttered, straining all his nerves he bowed;
As with the force of winds and waters pent
It
When mountains tremble, those two massy pillars

With horrible convulsion to and fro
He tugged, down they came, and drew

he shook, till
The whole roof after them with burst of thunder

Upon the heads of all who sat beneath.
Milton, Samson Agonistes. —
2. The Trochee, or Trochaic Foot
I I I I
Life is I
real! |
Life is |
earnest! |
I I t I .
And the ]
grave is |
not its |
goal;
/
Dust thou
Was
f
not
I
I
t
art, to
spoken
tit |
|
t
dust re
of the |
|
tumest,
soul.
I
The foregoing selection falls naturally into groups of

two syllables each, forming the feet into which we divide it.
The first syllable is accented (or strong), the second is
imaccented (or weak). Our glossary tells us that a foot of

two syllables, the first accented, the second unaccented,
is a trochee. "A Psalm of Life" is therefore in trochaic
measure. (Note. The last foot of the second and of the
fourth line drops one syllable from the usual number. A
line which thus drops one syllable is called a catalectic
line).
Other Examples of Trochaic Measure
I t t
Go where glory ]
waits thee
—Moore.
| |
THE FOOT 51
t t t t
Read this |
song of |
Hia watha.|
—^Longfellow,
|
Hiawatha.
t t t I t t
There's a |
lady, |
an earl's |
daughter, |
she is |
proud
and she is |
noble.
—Mrs.
I |
Browning, Lady Geraldine's Courtship.
J. The Anapast, or Anapcsstic Foot
t t t
And the sheen |

of their spears |
was like stars |
on the
sea.
—Byron,
I
The Destruction of Sennacharib.
t t t
From the cen |

tre all round |
to the sea |
I am lord |
of the fowl |
and the brute.
—CowPER, The Solitude of Alexander Selkirk.
Of the four commonest forms of time-scheme, the third
is the anapcest, which, as the foregoing examples illustrate,

consists of two imaccented syllables followed by one which
is accented.
4. The Dactyl, or Dactylic Foot
Cannon to |
right of them.
Cannon to |
left of them,
Cannon in |
front of them.
—Tennyson, The Charge of the Light Brigade.
One more un |
fortunate, |
Weary of |
breath,
Rashly im- |
portunate,
Gone to her |
death!
Take her up |
tenderly.
Lift her with |

care!
Fashioned so [
slenderly,
Young, and so ]
fair!
—Thomas Hood, The Bridge of Sighs.
A ddctyl is a foot of three syllables, the first syllable
accented, the second and third syllables unaccented —just

the reverse of the anapaest, as the trochee is the reverse of
the iambus. (Some of the foregoing lines are catalectic.)
5. Scanning
To divide a line into its constituent feet, to mark the

accented and unaccented syllables, to count the feet
and name their character, is called scanning. As a

Socratic illustration, and also to furnish some exercises
which are especially needed before we take up the next
section, let us scan the first line of "Gray's Elegy in a
Country Churchyard":
The
ft
cur |
few tolls |
the knell
tit |
of part |
ing day.
How does the accent fall?

A n unaccented syllable is followed by an accented one.
» THE FOOT 53
What is the name of this measure?

Iambic.
How many feet are there in each line; not syllables,
mind, hut feet?
There are ten syllables, but only five feet. Our glossary
tells us that a line of five feet is a pentameter. Gray's
^Êlegy," therefore, is written in iambic pentameter.
We have already seen that "A Psalm of Life" is
written in trochaic measure.

How many feet in the first line?
In the second?
Find the name for each line by referring to the glossary.
What a catalectic line?
ft
is
What is the measure of the following line?

t I
And his co |
horts were gleam |
ing with pur |
pie and gold.
Anapcestic.
How many anapaestic feet in the line?
What then shall we call the line?
What is the character of the feet in the first line of
" The Charge of the Light Brigade"?
Dactylic.
How many feet in the line?
Two.
What then shall we call the line?
Dactylic Dimeter.
6. The Law of Quantity in English Verse
We have seen that English verse is governed primarily

by accent; but quantity, or the law governing the time of
certain syllables, must not be lightly dismissed.
How shall we read the following line from Wordsworth?
A vio
/
I
let
II
by a mos sy
] |
I
stone.
This is four-foot iambic measure, and yet we have said

that an iambic foot consists of two syllables. Shall we
pronounce "violet" as "vi'iet?" Surely not. We have
said that the syllables of "viol" are really shorter than
those of "landmark." We could not scan "A landmark
low by a mossy stone" as four- foot iambic measure, but
we can so scan, "A violet by a mossy stone, " for the extra
short syllable gives an effect akin to that of a grace note

in music — that is, it is slipped in with a light touch, so to
say. In the hands of a master, such irregularities add new
and imsuspected beauties to meter, but a tyro should
attempt them sparingly.^
Another such device is the use of a pause. Take the
following stanza from Tennyson:
Birds in the high Hall-garden

Were crying and calling to her.
Where is Maud, Maud, Maud?
One is come to woo her.
Here the au in "Maud" is a diphthong and may be said

to be pronounced long, but are the five syllables of the
third line really equal to the seven of the first? No, they
are not, yet the lines balance. We find that the effect is
* See chapter on Irregularities.

! "
THE FOOT 55
produced by the instinctive pause after the word Maud,
Where is Maud—Maud—Maud?
and that these pauses serve to lengthen the line. Tenny-
son uses the same device in the well-known lines,
Break! Break! Break!

On thy cold gray stones, O sea!
Coleridge also uses it in the opening lines of " Christabel:
'Tis the middle of night by the castle clock,

And the owls have awaken'd the crowing cock;
Tu-whit ! Tu-whoo
We see, therefore, that additional short syllables are
and that a long syllable followed

occasionally allowable,
by a pause may be used to lengthen a line. Such use of
pauses does not, however, strictly correspond to quantity
in the classical sense, though we may say that quantity
occurs as a minor element in English verse.
In summing up we see that:
English verse is governed primarily by accent.
Verse-accent and word-accent should coincide,
Quantity is used as a minor element.
)( I. Scan (mark the accents and feet in) the following:
Maiden crowned with; glossy slackness,

Lithe as panther forest-roaming,
;
—
Long-armed naiad^ when she dances,

On a stream of ether floating.
—George Eliot; Song from the Spanish Gypsy.
(b)
As I sat sorrowing,
Love came and bade me sing
A joyous song and meet;
For see (said he) each thing
Is merry for the Spring,
And every bird doth greet

The break of blossoming,
That all the woodlands ring

Unto yoimg hours' feet.
—John Payne, Spring Sadness.
(c)
Loudly the sailors cheered
Svend of the Forked Beard.
—Longfellow, Saga of King Olaf-
y (^
Come live with me and be my love.
—Marlowe, The Passionate Shepherd.
(e)
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the night's Plutonian

shore.
—PoE, The Raven.
if)
I think of thee! —my thoughts do twine and bud
About thee, as wild vines about a tree,
Put out broad leaves, and soon there's nought to see

"
THE FOOT 57
Except the straggling green which hides the wood.

—Mrs. Browning, Sonnets from the Portuguese.
I am monarch of allu survey, ^^îf^/^^-"
Of my right there is 'none to dispute.

—CowPER, The Solitude of Alexander Selkirk.
2. (a) In what two ways might this single line from one
of Shakespeare's sonnets be scanned?
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought,
{h) Joined to its accompanying lines, how would you

scan it?
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought,

I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought.
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste;

y^T,. Write a line in iambic and one in trochaic meter.
»(^4. Say which seems better suited for spirited expression.
5. Why is English verse most commonly written in the

iambic form?
6. Name several poems, not mentioned in this chapter,
that are iambic in movement, and several that are trochaic.
7. Name one or more in anapaestic form and one or more
in dactylic form.
8. What is your understanding of the rule that "verse-

accent and word-accent should coincide?"
9. Which form of meter seems to you best suited to the
expression of serious thought?
10. What forms seem well adapted to expression in

lighter vein?
11. How do you account for the fact that an irregularity

in meter sometimes adds to the charm of a poetic line?
12. Point out several irregularities in the foregoing

stanzas. Note that there is a difference between the intro-
duction into a line of an odd foot and the mere omission
of a foot or a part of a foot in order to effect a pause.
This subject of irregularities receives fuller treatment

later.
V 13. Write stanzas, using the same foundation idea, in
each of the following foot-forms: (a) Iambic, (b) Trochaic,

(c) Anapaestic, (d) Dactylic.
V 14. Which form seemed most natural to you? Why?
15. Select a form best suited to the spirit of your thought
and write two stanzas, doing the best work of which you
are capable. Do not at this time allow yourself any varia-
tions or irregularities.
CHAPTER VI
RHYTHM
Measured intervals of time are the basis of all verse, and their
regularitymarks off poetry from prose; so that time is thus the
chief element in poetry, as it is in music and in dancing. From
the idea of measuring these time-intervals, we derive the name
metre; rhythm means pretty much the same thing, "a flow- —
ing," an even, measured motion. This rhythm is found every-
where in nature: the beat of the heart, the ebb and flow of the
sea, the alternation of day and night. Rhythm is not artificial,
not an invention; it lies at the heart of things, and in rhythm
the noblest emotions find their noblest expression.
—Francis B. Gummere, Handbook of Poetics.
In making our analysis of verse, we found that a line is
made up of easily recognized groups of accented and un-

accented syllables arranged in orderly succession, and that
each of these groups is called a foot. We must now con-
sider the relation of one foot to another, not alone in a
single line but in a succession of lines.
A foot in verse may be said to correspond to a bar in

music, and the regular recurrence of such feet or bars gives
us rhythm. A knowledge of musical rhythm, however,
is by no means necessary to an appreciation of rhythm in
verse, for it is possible to have a delicate ear for poetic

rhythm and yet to be ignorant of music.
Rhythm is the movement which we invariably hear and
feel in poetry — the quality which poetry still shares with
its parent arts of music and dancing. It is the most funda
6o THE ART OF VERSIFICATION
mental and important element of verse. We may have

verse without rhyme but we cannot have verse without
rhythm. Even Walt Whitman's poems have a rude and
impressive rhythm, produced by a repetition of similar
phrases, which will be felt when we read aloud the following
from "Heroes."
I am an old artillerist. I tell of my fort's bombard-

ment.
I am there again.
Again the long roll of the drummers,
Again the attacking cannon, mortars,
Again to my listening ears the cannon responsive.
Whitman's rhythm is often as insistent as the aforesaid

attacking cannon, or as the blows of a hammer on an anvil,
and by means of it, in his best poems, he rouses our emo-

tional excitement in much the same way that it is aroused,
for instance, by the overture from "Tannhauser."
It is the rhythmic movement of verse which plays most
directly upon the emotions. Even when the poetic ideas

are not unusually arousing, a spirited rhythmic arrange-
ment of words is sure to stir up feeling. It was the rhythm
of the "Marseillaise" which roused the enthusiasm of the
marching thousands who first sang it; it was the rhythm

of the "Carmagnole" which excited its singers and dancers
to the point of murder; it is the inarticulate rhythm of
the war-drum that goads a savage tribe to frenzy. We are

all more or by the rhythm of recurrent sounds
less affected
and movements by the surge and withdrawal

in nature:
of the waves on the beach, or by the moan of the wind in

" 1
RHYTHM 6
the trees. We are stirred by artificial rhythmic sounds

even when unaccompanied by words; we are excited by
the clang of a fire-bell, and saddened by the tolling of a
dirge. How much more appealing, then, is that verse
which is compoimded of high poetic ideas embodied in
rhjrthmical form.
Rhythm, then, is governed by time and balance, and in
English verse it is produced by a recurrence of accented

syllables at regular intervals.
I. Regular Rhythm Unrhymed
Let us consider an example of regular rhythm in blank

verse, —the last few lines of Milton's " Paradise Lost.
The world was all before them where to choose

II
II
r r I
II
Their place of rest and Providence
I
their guide.
II
Through Eden took
III
They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,
their solitary way.
We see that the rhythmic movement in these lines is
produced by the recurrence of accented syllables at regular

intervals, in other words by time. Milton's time-scheme
gives us five beats to the line, and so insistent is this rule of
time that in the third line the words "with wandering

steps," which contain five syllables, must count only two
beats, and our extra syllable must be pronounced lightly,
giving, as before noted, the effect of a grace-note in music.

We see that these lines are of the same length and balance
each other. Rhythm is thus governed by time and balance.
I
/
2.
come from haunts

tit
lit
Regular Rhythm
of coot
Rhymed
and hem,
I
III
make a sudden sally,
And
To
III
sparkle out
bicker down a
among
I
the fern,
valley.
—Tennyson, The Brook.
In this selection we have four time-beats in the first line
and four in the third. In the second line, we have only

three time-beats, because the line drops a syUable. Is it
therefore irregular? No, for it is exactly balanced by the

fourth line, which also gives us three time-beats and lacks
a syllable. The ear anticipates the form of the fourth line
and recognizes it with something akin to delight.
Indeed, if the law of balance be observed, a line of irregu-
lar length or unusual time-beat may often be used with
fine rhythmical effect, finding its echo in a similar line
further along.
There they
J.
III
Unusual Rhythm Unrhymed
till
are, my fifty men and women
I
Naming me
/
Take them. Love, the book and me

/
III
the fifty
/
/
poems
III
finished!
together:
Where the heart lies, let the brain lie also.
—Browning, Orie Word More.

RHYTHM 63
This example, as may be seen, has ten syllables and five
beats to the line, like the selection from "Paradise Lost,"

but the unusualness of the rhythm is caused by having
the beat come on the first syllable instead of on the second;
in other words, the lines are in trochaic meter instead of in
iambic meter. We are so used to having blank verse
written in iambic meter that when Browning reverses the
beat it strikes us as something entirely fresh, and we at
first think that he has added a syllable. But it is not so.
Notwithstanding this apparent irregularity, Browning

observes the law of time; his unusual beat falls with abso-
lute regularity, and he observes the law of balance, too,
the lines echoing one another.
Although it is possible to build up a rhythm by selecting
a given nimiber of time-beats, we must never forget that

rhythm is the inner impulse of verse, its heart-throb, as it
were, and that it should therefore be approached from the

inside and not from the outside. The stronger this inner
impulse the more vigorous and spirited will be the verse.
For instance, take the following:
4. Unusual Rhythm Rhymed
Half a league, half a league.
Half a league onward.
Into the Valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

—Tennyson, The Charge of the Light Brigade.
— —
Tennyson said that this rhythm was suggested by the

sound of a troop of galloping horse, and we naturally feel
that movement to be the inner impulse, which, working

in the poet's mind, determined the form of his poem; and
the reaction of the poem on our minds reproduces that
original impulse so perfectly that we hear the sound of the
galloping troopers. Imitation of natural sounds and
movements, and even of those that are mechanical, will
reward careful study with suggestions of new rhythms.
' '
c
There was never a priest to pray,
When they
/
t
There was never a hand to

ft
made me guard
»
r
toll
>
of the bay,
/
/
And moored me over the shoal.
I rock, I reel, and I roll

/ > I
My four great hammers ply

Could I speak or be still at the Church's will?
C Shoal! 'Ware shoal!") Not I!
—Kipling, Th^ Bell Buoy.

The inner impulse of this rhythm is the surging up and
down of the buoy, and it is emphasized by the recurrent
refrain "Shoal! 'Ware Shoal!"
Kipling has a wonderful feeling for rhythm and may be

profitably studied in this connection. Notice especially
"Danny Deever," "Mandalay," and "The Ballad of
East and West."
RHYTHM 65
/ / / / r
For they're done with Danny Deever, you can 'ear
The
the quickstep play,
ft
regiment's in
II
column, an' they're marchin'
II us
away;
Ho! the young

II recruits are
It
shakin', an they'll want
I
After hangin'
III
their beer today,
/
Danny Deever in the mornin'.

I
—Kipling, Danny Deever.

In this selection we hear the sound of the regimental
band and our feet almost instinctively keep time to it.
/ I I I I t
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, looking eastward to

I
the sea,
r I I I I )
There's a Burma girl a-settin', an' I know she thinks
o me;
For the wind

III is in the palm-trees, an' the
I II
temple-bells
they say:
I t I I
"Come you back, you British soldier; come you back

to Mandalay!"
Come you back

Where
III
the old Flotilla lay:
to Mandalay,
I I I I I
Can't you hear their paddles chunkin' from Rangoon

to Mandalay?
On the road to Mandalay,

f / t
Where the flyin'-fishes play,

/ t t t I
An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China
'crost the Bay!

—Kipling, Mandalay.
Though we may never have heard temple we
lit
bells,
recognize theirrhythm in the foregoing refrain.
It
I
They have ridden the low moon out of the sky, their
II
hoofs
The dun he went

t
drum up
I
like a
the dawn,
II
wounded
I
bull, but the mare
I
The dun he
II
Hke a new-roused fawn.
fell at a water-course
II — in
II
a woeful heap
fell he,
I I > I I
And Kamal has turned the red mare back, and pulled
the rider free.

— Kipling, Ballad of East and West.
These lines convey not only the romantic atmosphere
of the race, but its killing speed; and the rhythm of the
first half of the second Hne suggests even the faltering gait
of the spent horse.
So essential is this inner impulse that it may even

triumph over bad workmanship — a good rhythm will
sometimes carry an inferior poem. If, then, rhythm be so
important, the would-be versifier should cultivate a sense
RHYTHM 67
of it. How may this be done? By noting the beat of any

recurrent sound — the tick of a grandfather's clock, the
beat of his own pulse, the throb of a steamer's engine. He

should learn to feel the rhythm that goes with forward
motion, the steady stride of a long tramp, the fall of hoofs
in trot or gallop of a good horse under him, the thrust of
arms and legs in swimming, the swing of the body in
rowing. Not everyone can swim or ride, but nearly

everyone can walk, and many good poets have been good
walkers and have delighted in tramping out their measures.
Keats did some of his best work after a walking-trip in
Scotland; Tennyson kept pencil and paper in various
nooks and crannies which he visited on his daily tramps;

and Bayard Taylor's foot-journeys abroad brought him
to a higher skill in both prose and verse.
^ I. Does pleasing rhythm seem to you to be more im-

portant in poetry than exact regularity of accent?
2. What objection is there to the constant use of an

exact measure, free from "grace notes?"
*^
3. Having the thought for a poem, would you delib-
erately select a meter so as to express it, or would you
write some lines in the form that seemed most natural, and
then make the later lines conform to them?
4. Does the movement of "Mandalay" appear to you

to be slower than that of "Danny Deever?" If so, con-
sidering the equal quantity, how do you account for the
difference?
5. Select passages from the poets which illustrate any

three of the following: (a) galloping, (b) flowing water,
(c) rough movement, (d) warlike action, (e) nobility of
movement, (/") falling water, (g) sea waves, (h) the calm of
night, (i) any other idea you have observed particularly
well expressed by rhythm.
6. Criticise unfavorably any poem for its imperfect
rhythm. Be brief and specific.
7. Criticise another poem favorably.

8. Reread page 62, then see if an application may be
found on page 52.
j^ 9. Write two separate stanzas whose rhythm will illus-
trate any two of the ideas indicated in question 5. At this
stage of your work, open imitation will help you.

10. Write a stanza in imitation of *'The Charge of the
Light Brigade."
11. Write a stanza in imitation of "Mandalay."
—
CHAPTER VII
RHYME
What'er you write of, pleasant or sublime,
Always let sense accompany your rime;
Falsely they seem each other to oppose,
Rime must be made with reason's law to close;
And when to conquer her you band your force,
The mind will triumph in the noble course;
To reason's yoke she quickly will incline.
Which, far from hurting, renders her divine;
But if neglected, will as easily stray.
And master reason, which she should obey.
—
Nicolas Boileau, L'Art Poetique.
English poetry, in common with that of all modern

languages, is usually rhymed. The unrhymed lyric —of
which more later — is an exceptional form, while blank
verse is sufficiently individual to stand out from the
common custom. To it an entire chapter of this treatise
has been devoted.
I. Rhyme Defined
Rhyme is the recurrence of closely similar sounds at the

ends of corresponding lines of poetry, or in certain definite
places within the lines. In somewhat more technical lan-
guage, rhyme, as Professor Matthews observes in "A
Study of Versification," is made by using the same vowel-
soimds in the last long, or accented, syllable and in all the
syllables that follow it, "preceded by a difference in the

consonant-sound that comes before this final long vowel."
This law will be made clearer by illustration: plant and
slant rhyme properly, as do planted and slanted, and plant-
ing and slanting.
2. Imperfect Rhymes
Plant and implant are not regarded as perfect rhymes,

for the consonant soimds which precede the accented
vowel-sound are identical and their use would not only
betoken a poverty of invention but produce a feeble effect
upon the ear. Some genuine poets have allowed them-

selves this license — Byron rhymes philanthropic with mis-
anthropic, and Lowell couples mentor with tormentor, but
it is better to follow the strict law.
For the foregoing reasons, words of similar sound but of
different meaning, as sight and site, are not considered
perfect rhymes in English poetry, although they are
allowed and even much used in French verse.
The further rule that the final accented syllables and not
merely the final syllables must rhyme also finds distin-
guished violators, but it is almost universally recognized

that naming and charming do not rhyme —the accented
vowels are identical, but they are not identical vowel-
sounds, such as we have in charming smd harming, which are
therefore perfect rhymes. It should be remarked that
these two words may appear to break the law requiring
a different consonant-sound preceding the last accented
vowel-sound, but h is an aspirate which breathes into the
—
RHYME 71
a sound in harming, while ch gives the true consonant-

sound. Sometimes the law requiring that rhymes be based
on the last accented syllables is violated by coupling in
rhyme such words as rainbow and below. In these words

the accents do not fall on the syllables of similar soimd and
therefore they do not rhyme.
It may also be said in passing that not merely the final
accented syllables but — if there be any—also all succeeding

syllables of rhymed words must be of similar sound in
order to effect a perfect rhyme. Thus, not only the ac-

cented syllables of indelicate and indelible rhyme, but the
first three syllables are identical, yet the words do not
approach a true rhyme because their final syllables vary
in sound. But untellable and indelible do rhyme, per-
fectly; though the a and i are not identical vowels, their
sounds in combination tellable, delible —are sufiiciently
close to rhyme well. A trained ear is the best safeguard

against the use of such false rhymes as clime, shrine, or
blundered, hundred — though the latter pair was used by
Tennyson in "The Charge of the Light Brigade" —not by
mistake, of course, but doubtless because colloquially
many do say hunderd and because there is no perfect
rhyme for hundred, and he could not discard the word.
The fact that great poets have been guilty of atrocious
rhymes —and the instances are many —ought not to be
quoted as an excuse for others.
Do not be misled by the r sound. Dawn and morn do
not rhyme, nor do broad and lord, or Eva and deceiver.
Certain rhymes which once were legitimate can no
longer be so considered. In Shakespeare's day, conceit and
:
weight rhymed and in the i8th century, joy rhymed with

high. Owing to changes in pronunciation these are no longer
admissible. Wind, however, is a word which in poetry
keeps its old pronimciation; it is usually rhymed on the
sound of kind and not on that of sinned.
J. Kinds of Rhyme
As might be inferred from the foregoing pages, there are

various kinds of rhyme:
Masculine, or single, rhyme consists of a rhyme on one
syllable only, as day, pray.
Feminine, or double, rhyme is a rhyme on two syllables, as
token, spoken; so also unbroken, because the last two sylla-
bles rhyme in soimd with token and are accented similarly,

without any reference to the first syllable un.
Triple rhyme is a rhyme on three syllables, as scornfully,
mournfully.
Masculine rhyme gives force, feminine usually gives
lightness and grace, while triple is seldom employed except
in humorous verse, although Hood uses it in one of his
serious poems
The Bridge of Sighs
One more unfortunate,

Weary of breath.
Rashly importunate.
Gone to her death!
RHYME 73
Take her up tenderly,

Lift her with care !
Fashioned so slenderly,
Young, and so fair!
4. Location of Rhymes
By rhyme we usually mean end-rhyme, or the agreement

in sound of the final words of the lines. End- rhyme was
adopted in England after the Norman conquest and was
imitated from the rhyming meters of the widely used
Latin hymns. The simplest form of Latin hymn meter
became the ordinary English ballad measure, which will
be treated under The Ballad. The Normans in the reign
of Henry II introduced the lyric poetry of Provence and

Aquaitaine into England, and although the people re-
mained satisfied with simple ballad measure, the court

and clerkly poets were much influenced by these new
meters. In the 13th century they rhymed with grace and
facility, as is shown by a few scraps of song which have
come down to us, and by the beginning of the 14th cen-
tury more complicated rhyme-schemes were used in Eng-
land than were after attempted until we reach the recent
imitations of French artificial meters, which also require
a separate and later treatment.
The following example of graceful rhyme is the first
stanza of a love lyric from one of the Harleian manuscripts.

It is written in the Southern Saxon dialect and was evi-
dently intended to be sung, for it has a refrain. In fact it
almost sings itself.

B3rtuene Mersh ant Averil,

When spray beginneth to springe,
The lutel foul hath hire wyl
On hyre lud to S3aige.
Ich libbe in love-longinge

For symlokest of alle thinge;
He may me bUsse bringe;

Icham in hire baundoun.
An hendy hap ichabbe yhent;
Ichot from hevene it is me sent;
From alle wymmen mi love is lent
Ant lyht on Alysoun,
In English poetry we are not confined to end-rhymes,

but occasionally use other forms, such as beginning-rhyme,
wherein the first syllable of each rhyming line rhymes.
Although some authors treat beginning-rhyme as if it were
the same as alliteration, there is really a decided differ-
ence — a mere examination of the two forms should show
this. (See chapter on Alliteration and Assonance.)
The following specimen of beginning-rhyme is from
Hood's "The Bridge of Sighs." Observe that end-rhyme
is also used.
Mad from life's history,

Glad to death's mystery.
So unusual a rhyme-scheme should be used charily for

it is really only ornamental, and, indeed, it has been seldom
adopted by poets of distinction.
Not content with end-rhyme and beginning-rhyme.
RHYME 75
poets occasionally use internal-rhyme, generally using end-

rhyme also. Some of the rhyme-schemes of the old Latin
hymn writers, from which our English poets often took
their patterns, were very complicated; for instance, that
of "Jerusalem the Golden," by the French monk, Bernard
of Cluny, who was Bernard de Morlas. The original,
which he believed to be the direct result of inspiration,
contains forty-three stanzas of unequal length, and is
entitled "The Celestial Country." Another Latin poem

was written in 1145 by the same Bernard. It contains
three thousand lines and furnishes the most remarkable
examples of both internal- and end-rhyme extant.
De Contemptu Mundi
Hora novissima, tempora pessima sunt, vigilemus
Ecce minaciter imminet arbiter ille supremus.
Imminet, imminet et mala terminet, aequa coronet,
Recta remuneret, anxia liberet, aethera donet,
Auferat aspera duraque pondera mentes onustae,
Sobria muniat, improba pimiat, utraque juste.
A good example of internal-rhyme is Tennyson's "Sweet

and Low," and a still finer one in the following lyric from
"The Princess. " No title is given by the poet himself.
Bugle
The splendor falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story:
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying.
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.
"
Poe uses three-fold internal-rhyme in "The Raven:"
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no

token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word
"Lenore."
The same device is used with good effect in Alfred Per-
cival Graves' "Father O'Flynn:"
Powerfullest preacher and tindherest teacher.

And kindliest creature in old Donegal.
Too plentiful a use of double-rhyme is apt to impair the

dignity of a poem, which may thus degenerate into jig-
time. The stateliest measures use single-rhyme.
5. Unusual Rhyme-Schemes
Unusual rhymes may sometimes be employed to add

emphasis or to catch the attention. Browning delighted
in fantastic rhymes. His reason may perhaps be found in
this stanza:
Grand, rough old Martin Luther

Bloomed fables, flowers on furze,
The better, the uncouther;

Do roses stick like burrs?
Thomas Love Peacock was one of the most dexterous

The following opening stanza of
of English rhymesters.
one of his poems goes off like the clatter of musketry:
RHYME 77
War-Song of Dinas Vawr
The mountain sheep are sweeter

But the valley sheep are fatter;
We therefore deemed it meeter
To carry off the latter.
We made an expedition,
We met an host and quell'd it,
We forced a strong position
And kill'd the men who held it.
We find many clever examples of unusual rhymes in
humorous and satirical verse. Barham's "The Ingoldsby

Legends" is a mine of such ingenious combinations; for
instance:
Should it even set fire to the castle and bum it, you're
Amply insured both for buildings and furniture.
Horace and James Smith's "Rejected Addresses" con-

and slim knee, which
tain other examples, such as chimney
they used because the former word was said to have no
rhyme in EngHsh. W. S. Gilbert's "Bab Ballads" as well
as his opera librettos contain many effective rhymes. As
an example of a "patter song," take this from "The
Sorcerer:"
what is the matter?

O what is the clatter?
He's glowering at her
And threatens a blow!
O why does he batter

The girl he did flatter,
And why does the latter

Recoil from him so?
6. Special Cautions
Rhyming words should not be too widely separated,

although occasionally a poet carries a rhyme from one
stanza to another, as Keats does in the following:
In a Drear-Nighted December
In a drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy Tree,
Thy branches ne'er remember
Their green felicity:
The north wind cannot undo them

With a sleety whistle through them,
Nor frozen thawings glue them
From budding at the prime.
In a drear-nighted December
Too happy, happy Brook,
Thy bubblings ne'er remember
Apollo's summer look;
But with a sweet forgetting
They stay their crystal fretting,
Never, never petting
About the frozen time.
RHYME 79
The troubadours wrote stanzas consisting entirely of
unrhymed lines, to which rhymes were found in the suc-
ceeding stanzas of the same poem, but our ears are not so
highly educated, and decline to carry many sounds so far.
If you employ rhyme at all, study to do it properly.
Never be content to leave an imrhymed line unless your
meter requires it, as in simple English ballad meter, or the
quatrains (four-line stanzas) of Omar Khayyam.
In writing stanzas with alternate rhymes, do not use the
same vowel-sound in pairs of adjoining rhymes,— for in-
stance:
hope
stone
grope
alone
is a faulty rhyme-grouping because the rhymes are not

identical, yet they are too similar to be well contrasted.
It is almost as faulty to use as adjoining words those of
generally similar sounds, as:
hid
led
rid
said
it is permissible to use your best and most

In rhyming
effectiveword last, but do not be satisfied with an imper-
fect rhyme. Always seek a perfect one that expresses your
meaning. Remember, Dante said that words had never

made him say what he did not want to say, but that he had
often made them say what they did not want to say. Re-
vert to Boileau's counsel, which is prefixed to this chapter,

and let all the scheme and variety of your rhymes be
governed by your theme and your purpose. That which
would be quite tolerable in nonsense verse would not serve
for a dignified poem.
ExERasES FOR Class Use and Self-Instruction
>C I. Which of the following groups are perfect rh3rmes:

cold, doled; might, mite; due, two; knighthood, right would;
claim, lain; twined, wind; his train, his strain; scruple, pupil.
w 2. Criticise any that may be imperfect, giving your
reasons.
3. Would you feel free to use an imperfect rhyme if it
appears in poetic masterpieces?
X 4- In what classes of poetry are internal-rhymes es-
pecially appropriate?
5. If you must keep in a poem a word requiring a rhyme,

and the only rhyming word is unpoetic, or conveys not
quite the desired shade of meaning, which rhyming word
should precede the other?
6. In selecting rhymes for a poem, should one always
strive for euphony?
^ 7. When a rhyme does not readily suggest itself, how
do you proceed to find the suitable word?
8. Write a stanza, rhyming words of several syllables.
9. Write another containing one or more internal
rhymes in every line.
10. Write others in imitation of the stanza (a) on pages

72 and 73 ;
(b) on page 66 ;
(c) on page 77 ;
(d) on page 42.
RHYME 51
11. From poems in this volume, make a list of rhymed

words which are no longer perfect on account of changing
pronunciation.
12. Are all the rhymes in the following stanza suited to
serious poetry? Why, or why not?
Kitty
Blue eyes so changeable.

Hair so arrangeable,
Twice is she never the same,
Will so capricious is.
Form so delicious is,
Pulses of mine are aflame.
Doric simplicities,
Attic felicities,
In her trim figure unite.

Sweetly they steal to me,
Clearly reveal to me
How disconcerting my plight.
Though I may sing to her,
What could I bring to her?

Only a heart in distress,
Futile my verse it is,
Empty my purse it is,
Bondage, not bonds, I possess.

Art is so tenuous,
Life is so strenuous,
Love such an exquisite trance.
Shall I beware of her?
Or shall I dare for her,
Like the old knights of romance?

—Edward J. Wheeler, in the International.
13. Make a scrap-book or note-book collection of every

type of rhyme you can gather.
14. Write a brief discussion of the suitability of some of
these rhymes from the standpoint of the entire poem and
of the individual passage.
15. Practise altering the rhyme words in well-known

poems, then carefully study the effect on the thought,
beauty, and general poetic qualities of the poem.
— —
CHAPTER VIII
ASSONANCE AND ALLITERATION

All alliteration for the sake of alliteration is trifling.
—Sidney Lanier, The Science of English Verse.
I. Assonance
The literal meaning of the word assonance conveys a

suggestion of its technical signification —sound placed \\ath
sound. It is vowel-rhyme, and in versification is used now

and then as a substitute for regular-rhyme.
Assonance consists in the use of the same vowel-sound

in the assonant words —combined, however, with non-
assonant consonants. Theoretically, this method of
sound-unity requires the use of the same vowels in the

assonant words from each last accented vowel to the end
of the word, penitent, merited, furnishing an unusually
good example because all the vowels are the same e, i, e—
and only one consonant repeated t. In practice, however,
it is usually only the accented vowels which are identical,
as madden, naiad.
Assonance was the rhyme-system of some of the old
Romance languages, and "Le Chanson de Roland" is in
itself a famous example. This rhyme-scheme was a char-

acteristic of the old Spanish ballads, and is still used in
Spanish poetry.
——
George Eliot successfully imitated their usage in the
following song from "The Spanish Gypsy:"
Maiden, crowned with glossy blackness,

Lithe as panther forest-roaming.
Long-armed naiad, when she dances,
On a stream of ether floating
Bright O bright Fedalma!
Assonance was also a feature of Celtic poetry, and sur-

vives as a spontaneous quality in some present-day Irish
poems. For example, we find it freely used in Milliken's
"The Groves of Blarney."
"The groves of Blarney, they look so charming, " etc.
It is used by Francis Mahoney in "The Bells of Shan-
don:"
I've heard bells tolling

Old Adrian's Mole in,
Their thunder rolling

From the Vatican
And cymbals glorious
Swinging uproarious
In the gorgeous turrets
Of N6tre Dame.
Here tolling and Mole in, can and Dame, are not intended
as imperfect rhymes but as assonance. It is also used in
"The Town of Passage" by the same author:

ASSONANCE AND ALLITERATION 85
The town of Passage

Is both large and spacious
And situated
Upon the say.
Examples of it may be foimd in many great poets.

Lowell says that "Homer, like Dante and Shakespeare,
like all who really command language, seems fond of
pla3dng with assonances." For the modem rhymster,
its sparing use may add color and variety to his verse if
employed within the line, but it had best be avoided in
terminal words lest it be mistaken for imperfect end-rhyme.
2. Alliteration
Alliteration is another ancient system of verse-making

which survives in English poetry merely as an ornament.
It is the repetition of the same letter or sound at the begin-
ning of two or more words or syllables in close or imme-
diate succession.
In a 5omer 5eson when soiV was the 5onne,

I ^hope me in ^hroudes as I a ^hepe were.
—William Langland, The Vision Concerning Piers the
Plowman.
Anglo-Saxon, Icelandic, and Middle-English poems are

practically all alliterative — in fact, considered as verse,
their distinguishing characteristic is this type of sound-
imity. In modern times, Wagner employed alliteration

for his librettos instead of using end-rhymes, doubtless in
86 THE ART or VERSIFICATON
most instances to convey the early Germanic feeling as
well as for purposes of vocalization. The composer

maintained that, owing to the singer's need of dwelling on
the vowel-sound, the terminal consonant and rhyme were
lost, whereas the initial consonant could not be lost. He
was probably also influenced by the fact that the old
Teutonic poems from which he drew his material were all
written in alliteration, and he therefore found the form

ready-made to his hand.
Shakespeare used the scheme wherever it would beautify

his verse.
To turn and M;ind a fiery Pegasus,

And witch the world with noble horsemanship.
—Henry IV.
And deeper than did ever plummet sound

I'll </rown my book.
— The Tempest.
He also takes occasion in "Love's Labor's Lost" to
ridicule the abuse of alliteration, where Holofernes, the

schoolmaster, says, "I will something afifect the letter;
for it argues facility," and then he reads a poem begin-
ning:
The preyful princess pierced and prick't a pretty

pleasing pricket,
which reminds us of the nursery example,
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.

Thus evidently, alliteration is the easiest of all verse

ornaments, wherefore the amateur poet should be on his
guard against its excessive use. Too much of it gives a
slippery quality to the verse — the ear is pleased, but
finally teased, by the recurring sound, and the mind lets
the idea slide by inattentively. As Browning asks, "Do

roses stick like burrs?"
But alliteration also has its merits, and Swinburne, a
skillful poet, has used the device with beautiful effect, as:
.Before the beginning of years.
There came to the waking of man.
Sometimes, however, he adopts it less happily:
The /ilies and languors of tîrtue
The roses and raptures of ziice.
Here, we feel that the words were chosen mainly for the
sake of their alliterative quality, and the mind uncon-
sciously resents the fact; and really this charge of arti-
ficiality is the gravest reason against its f request use. In

other words, moderate alliteration intensifies the meaning,
as in Kipling's "The Ballad of East and West:"
"You have taken the one/rom a/oe," said he,

"Will you take the mate/rom a/riend?"
Upon the other hand, excessive alliteration weakens the

meaning, as in the foregoing second Swinburne example,
and gives a feeling of triviality —a sense of mere word
jugglery.
The repetition of the same idea, or the same word or

phrase, is a legitimate and often a more efifective kind of
verse-ornament than alliteration, and one much in use
among primitive peoples. Note this translation of an old

Russian song on the death of Ivan the Terrible:
It happened to us
In Holy Russia,
In stone-built Moscow
In the golden Kremlin,
They beat upon the great bell.
Some further reference to this subject will be found

under the treatment of The Ballad.
1. How does assonance differ from imperfect rhyme?

2. Give three original examples of assonance, using
words of different vowel sounds.
3. Write a verse using as many assonant words as seems
desirable.
4. Alter several of your former verses by the introduc-

tion of assonant words.
5. Discuss briefly the effect of too many assonant words

in one poem.
6. What effect has alliteration upon a line, apart from
its sound?
7. Turn a passage]of figurative prose into simple allitera-
tive verse.
.
^ 8. Why should a poet guard against the too frequent

use of alliteration?
yC, g. Try to find examples (a) of its good use; (b) of its
imperfect use.
10. (a) Write a quatrain containing as many alliterative
words as possible, (b) Correct it by taking out all allitera-
tive words, except those that are so well used that a change
would mar the verse.
1 1 Do the same for a second stanza.

CHAPTER IX
ONOMATOPCEIA
SOUND AND MOVEMENT

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learned to dance.
'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence,
The sound must seem an echo of the sense.
Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows.
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar;
When Ajax strives some rock's vast might to throw,
The line, too, labors, and the words move slow.
Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain.
Flies o'er the unbending com, and skims along the main.
—Alexander Pope, Essay on Criticism.
I. Sound
Onomatopoeia is the use of words expressive of natural

sounds — it is fitting the sound to the meaning. Primitive
man used imitative sounds to describe certain objects.
The Indian name Minnehaha, Laughing Water, is a
familiar illustration. The original roots of some of our
common words arose in the effort of our remote ancestors
to describe sound and motion. The word horse, for in-
stance is hrse, or the sound made by a swiftly passing
animal.
1:
ONOMATOPCEIA —SOUND AND MOVEMENT 9
In English we have many words descriptive simply of

soimd, such as buzz, hiss, murmur, and clang. We have
other words descriptive merely of motion, such as hover
and waver. By descriptive, here, we mean that the sound
of the word indicates the motion expressed.
We have still a third class of words descriptive of both
soimd and motion, such as tramp, gallop and plunge.
You see what a mine of rich materials such words are
for the poet, and the masters of language have ever been
quick to delve for and use them.
Let us now consider gallop as an example of a word
which describes both sound and motion. This word does
not trot; it gives us both the movement and the thud of
the more spirited gait. Canter gives the same motion, but
without the blow at the end.
Repeat aloud the word plunge. Do you not hear the
sound of the fall of a heavy body in water, with its partial
resurge to the surface?

Study the following line from Tennyson:
The white, cold, heavy-plunging foam.
—A Dream of Fair Women.
Notice the effect of the long o's in this line. Why is it such
an excellent description of the ocean?
Think of the sound of a retreating wave on a pebbly
shore or shingle, and then compare it with Tennyson's line
The scream of a maddened beach dragged

down by the waves,
and with this passage from Matthew Arnold's "Dover
Beach:"
Listen you hear the grating roar

!
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At up the high strand.

their return,
Begin and cease, and then again begin.

With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
And from the same poem:
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar

Retreating.
One of the most famous descriptions of the sea is
Homer's line:
Be dakeon para thena poluthoishoio thalasses.

He walked by the shore of the many-sounding sea.
We may not imderstand Greek but we can hear the

sound of waves on the beach in the last two words.
Great poets have reproduced harsh sounds as well as
melodious ones, as the following lines illustrate, particu-
larly the scraping soimd of the words scrannel, wretched,

straw.
Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw.

— Milton, Lycidas.
On a sudden open fly
With impetuous recoil and jarring sound

The infernal doors, and on their hinges grate
Harsh thunder.
— Milton. Paradise Lost.
Tennyson is past-master in the use of onomatopoeia.

Study his:
Moan of doves in immemorial elms,

And murmuring of innumerable bees.
— The Princess.
And also:
I heard the ripple washing in the reeds,

And the wild water lapping on the crag.
— The Passing of Arthur.
Read Tennyson's "Song of the Brook" for the move-
ment of flowing water:
I come from haunts of coot and hern,

I make a sudden sally,
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.
The verse has the sound of rippling water.

Read Southey's once famous "Cataract of Lodore" for
a description of a waterfall, though it is less a poem than a

collection of descriptive words.
The cataract strong

Then plunges along.
Striking and raging
As if a war waging
—
Its caverns and rocks among;

Rising and leaping,
Sinking and creeping,
Swelling and sweeping,
Showering and springing,
Flying and flinging,
Writhing and wringing,
Eddying and whisking.
Spouting and frisking.
Turning and twisting.
Around and around
With endless rebound:
Smiting and fighting,
A sight to delight in;
Confounding, astounding.
Dizzying and deafening the ear with its sound.
Poe in "The Bells" pushed the principle of descriptive

sound to its extreme limit.
Hear the loud alarum bells

Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night

How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak.
They can only shriek, shriek.
Out of tune,
In the clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire.
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire
Leaping higher, higher, higher.

With a desperate desire.
— —
ONOMATOPOEIA —SOUND AND MOVEMENT 95
And a resolute endeavor,

Now—now to sit, or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
O the bells, bells, bells,
What a tale their terror tells
Of despair!
How they clang and clash and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,

By the twanging,
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows;
Yet the ear distinctly tells.
In the jangling,
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells
Of the bells,—
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells.
Bells, bells, bells,
In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!
Compare Poe's poem with "The Bells of Shandon,"

by Francis Mahoney:
With deep affection
And recollection,
I often think of
Those Shandon bells,
Whose sounds so wild would

In the days of childhood,
Fling round my cradle

Their magic spells.
On this I ponder,
Where'er I wander,
And thus grow fonder.
Sweet Cork, of thee;
With thy bells of Shan don.
That sound so grand on
The pleasant waters
Of the river Lee.
Another notable example of sound descriptive of the

sense is Kipling's "Mandalay, " with its tone-coloring of
the "tinkly temple-bells:"
No! you won't 'eed nothin' else

But them spicy garlic smells,
An' the sunshine, an' the palm trees, an' the tinkly temple-
bells.
On the road to Mandalay,

Where the flyin'-fishes play.
An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crcxst
the Bay!
2. Movement
Onomatopoeia includes movement as well as sound.

Besides the onomatopoetic word, giving the sound of a
thing, we may have the onomatopoetic rhythm, giving its
movement. The refrain of the poem just quoted, " Manda-

: ,
lay," reproduces not only the sound but also the rhythm
of a chime of bells.
Tennyson's lullaby,
Sweet and low, sweet and low.

Wind of the western sea,
gives us the rhythm of a mother rocking her child to sleep.
As she was an English mother and probably had no rocking

chair, she must have swayed her body back and forth, for
the swinging rhythm is there.
Rest, rest, on Mother's breast,

Father will come to thee soon.
The effect of Virgil's well-known line:
Quadrupedante putrem quatit solida ungula campum,

(He shook the dusty earth with his solid four-footed hoof)
is gained by rhythm as well as sound, and it is the thunder-

ing hexameter that shakes the earth for us.
Compare Browning's "How they Brought the good
News from Ghent to Aix" with Tennyson's "The Charge
of the Light Brigade," where the dactylic rhythm gives
us themovement of a troup of galloping horse.
Read the excellent poem by Caroline Norton, "The
King of Denmark's Ride. " The second stanza follows
Thirty nobles saddled with speed;

(Hurry!)
Each one mounting » gallant steed
Which he kept for battle and days of need;
(Ride as though you were flying!)

Spurs were struck in the foaming flank,

Worn-out chargers stagger'd and sank;
Bridles were slacken'd and girths were burst,
But ride as they would, the king rode first,
For his Rose of the Isles lay dying!
Compare this with the slower movement of Longfellow's

"Ride of Paul Revere:"
And vmder the alders that skirt its edge.

Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.
And then compare it with these descriptive words in
Scott's translation of Biirger's ballad of "Lenore:"
Tramp, tramp along the land they rode,

Splash, splash across the sea.
I. Name ten words whose sounds suggest their mean-

ings.
"^ 2. Mention two harsh, unmusical words of this class.
Examine Browning's "Childe Roland" and "Up at a

Villa" for examples.
3. Give several words which suggest moral qualities,
such as slink.
4. Should onomatopoetic words be used sparingly, or

whenever possible?
5. Avoiding quotation, what suggestive words would
you select to describe the constant murmur of a small

stream?
-^ 6. What two effects may be gained by the use of ono-
matopoeia?
7. Which is the more easily attained?
8. Write a stanza descriptive of a race between hydro-
aeroplanes or between automobiles, using words and
rhythm to suggest both the appropriate sound and the
speed.
y, 9. Write a criticism, favorable or unfavorable, or both,

of any poem you can find which contains a passage de-
scriptive of (a) a bird's flight; (b) a horse's motion; (c)
the sound or movement of the sea; (d) a singing voice.

"y, 10. Select a line of poetry whose movement is slow, and
alter so as to quicken it.
11. Alter another Hne so as to make the movement

slower.
12. Give examples of lines whose rhythm does not suit
the sense.
13. Write a quatrain describing a chime of bells ringing
for a wedding.
14. Write one describing the tolling of a funeral knell.
15. Write a couplet (a) descriptive of waves dashing on

a rocky coast; (b) descriptive of waves rolling upon a
sandy beach. See if you have used words that actually
convey the sound of the water.
CHAPTER X
TONE-COLOR
Words are available for something which is more than knowl-
edge. Words afford a more delicious music than the chords of
any instrument; they are susceptible of richer colors than any
painter's palette; and that they should be used merely for the
transportation of intelligence, as a wheelbarrow carries brick, is
not enough. The highest aspect of literature assimilates it to

painting and music. Beyond and above all the domain of use
lies beauty, and to aim at this makes literature an art.
—T. W. HiGGiNSON, Atlantic Essays.
We may be able to express a beautiful thought in abso-
lutely correct verse: our lines may contain the proper
number of syllables, our accents may fall in the right
places, our rhymes may be perfect, our rhythm may be
accurate, and yet our verse be far from beautiful.

Why is this?
Because the sound-effect of our verse may not be beauti-

ful. We may not have carefully selected the separate
words, not only with a view to their individual sounds,
but also to the sounds of the words with which they are
combined.
The ear delights in harmony, in contrast, and in a certain
amount of unobstrusive repetition. The words which we
choose should therefore be harmonious in themselves,
the rhyme-groups should be contrasted (see chapter on
Rhyme), and certain sounds or letters should be judiciously
repeated.
TONE-COLOR lOI
The words which a poet uses may be compared to the

bits of colored glass with which a worker in mosaic forms
his picture. As the artist combines, contrasts, and
harmonizes his colored bits of material, so the poet com-
bines, contrasts, and harmonizes the syllables of his
words, echoing vowel with vowel, enhancing consonant

with consonant, and the resulting quality we call tone-
color.
Apart from their appeal to the mind and feeling, the
difference in the beauty of two poems, both equally lofty

in subject and treatment, or even in two stanzas of the
same poem, is usually due, in the last analysis, to the

variations of this quality.
Remember that we are not now discussing thought
or emotion, but simply sound. Yet it is true that an
exquisite sound will give us an exquisite emotion. Read
the following stanza:
Carved with figures strange and sweet,

All made out of the carver's brain,
For a lady's chamber meet:

The lamp with twofold silver chain
Is gathered to an angel's feet.

— Coleridge, Christabel.
Now why should this description of a lady's room fill
us with distinct pleasure? There is no particular thought

here; there is no particular emotion; there is simply
suggestion by means of exquisite sound.
If we are not discussing thought or feeling, neither are
we discussing the particular meaning of words. •Qft§»ft^
UNIVERSITY OF CALiFOR
RIVERSIDE
I02 THE ART OF VERSIFICATION
the most beautiful poems in the English language has

very little intellectual meaning, and was admittedly written
as the recollection of an opium dream — the "Kubla
Khan" of Coleridge. Its excellence consists chiefly in
its tone-color.
So, tone-color has nothing to do with thought, or

feeling, or meaning. It has to do with sound and sound
only, and the more we study it the more we shall discover
how great poets produced by this means, lines of undying

beauty. But, of course, this is not to say that most pas-
sages of charming tone-color possess no thought, or feeling,
or meaning!
Mr. Kipling quotes three lines of "Kubla Khan" as
"The high- water mark that but two of the sons of Adam
have reached." Here are the lines:
A savage place as holy and enchanted

As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon lover.
And Kipling goes on to say, "Remember that in all the

millions permitted there are no more than five — five little
lines — of which one can say: 'These are the pure magic.
"
These are the clear Vision. The rest is only poetry,'
and then he gives us the other two:
Magic casements opening on the foam

Of perilous seas in fairy-lands forlorn.
—Keats, Ode to a Nightingale.
Before seeing if we can analyze the beauty of these two

passages, let us first take two easier ones. We have said
:
TONE-COLOR 103
that the obviousness of the alliteration of Swinburne's

line,
The lilies and languors of virtue,
rather repels us. Contrast it with this line from Milton
The pilot of the Galilean lake.
Here are four Vs to Swinburne's three, but there is no

feeling of excess, and the music is far subtler. Why is
this? It is because the Ps, with one exception, are not

initial Ps; they come to us unexpectedly and unob-
trusively, mostly in the middle of the words, and the
effect is enhanced by the fact that the one initial I instead
of being near the beginning of the line, and showing us
what to expect, comes with the last word of all, giving us
a sense of satisfaction like a musical chord resolving what
has gone before. Take the Coleridge lines before quoted:
A savage place as holy and enchanted

As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon lover.
Mark the varying sounds of a in this selection. Mark

the w'5, then the m^s, then the o^s, and then the Ps. Do
you see how they echo, contrast, and enhance each other?
Take the Keats selection:
Magic casements opening on the foam

Of perilous seas in fairy-lands forlorn.
Here we have the varying a^s again, the m^s and n's, the
—
o's and I's; and we have a new element of beauty in the

recurrent r sounds.
It must be remembered that some soimds are beauti-
ful in themselves while some are not. The 5 sound which
occurs so often in English, is not beautiful. Tennyson
used to say that he had never been guilty of putting two
s's together. He meant at the end of one word and the
beginning of the following word. The Greeks disliked
the 5 sound and avoided it as much as possible. Another

thing the Greeks abhorred, was the hiatus, or the clashing
of two similar vowel-soimds. In poetry it was absolutely
forbidden. In English we try to avoid it, for instance
by writing mine eyes for my eyes.

—
But other sounds more especially vowel-sounds
are peculiarly pleasing. A distinguished Frenchman once
said that the i sound was the most beautiful in the English
language, and he also said that Lily-of-the-V alley was
the most beautiful English word.
We easily recognize the beauty of sound in some foreign
words, the Philippine Iloilo —pronounced e-lo-e-lo
for example, and the Hawaiian Aloha.

The ear derives a certain pleasure from repetition, as
we have seen in considering alliteration, but we also
found that a subtle and unexpected repetition, varying
between and letters
initial letters in the middle of words,
pleased us more than marked alliteration. Therefore

we admired Milton's line.
The pilot of the Galilean lake.
If, then, certain sounds are musical in themselves, a

TONE-COLOR I05
passage containing those sounds will probably be musical,

and if the ear delights in unexpected repetition, the more
a poet weaves such delicate, subsidiary echoes into his
verse, the more beautiful, verbally, that verse will be.
We may concede that the i soimd and the / sound are
musical and pleasing. But there is short i, and long i.
We shall find that we gain a new harmony by playing

with both. For example, let us take a passage contain-
ing short and long i^s, and Vs —the speech of Perdita to
Florizel in Shakespeare's "A Winter's Tale." By care-

fully marking some of the letters we shall see why the
lines are beautiful.
DsiSodih
That come before the swa//ow (/ares, and take
The winds of March with, beauty; violets, dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes,
Or C3'therea's breath; pa/e prmroses.
That die unmarried, ere they can behold
Bright Phoebus in his strength, a walady
Most incident to msiids; hold oxlips, anJ
The crown imperia,l; lilies of a.11 kinds
The f/ower-de-/uce being one! Oh! these I /ack.
To make you ga,Tla,nds of.
This passage will repay most careful study. The music

of it is produced by playing on the sounds of d, I, i and m,
though the n's also have their part in it by slightly vary-
ing the m sound. Now give especial attention to
sounds of long i. Notice particularly the third line where

the w's of winds and with change into the related sound of
lo6 THE ART OF VERSIFICATION
V in violets. Take also the last word of the first line and
the two last words of the third,
daffodils,
violets, dim.
You have there a delicious music expressed in a form

more sweet than any rhyme.
We can easily see that o^s and r's give sonorous sound,
and m's and n's resonance, while Fs and p's —the labials
that close the lips in utterance — detract from these

qualities. Read aloud the beginning of Parsons' "Ode
on a Bust of Dante:"
See, from this counterfeit of him

Whom Arno shall remember long.
How stern of lineament, how grim,
The father was of Tuscan song!
The sonorous syllables roll majestically along and the

effect is produced by o's contrasted with broad a^s, and
by m''s and n's, and I's and r's. Curiously enough there
is no p, and but one b in this whole selection.
Here is another sonorous and solemn example, the

finest lines that Andrew Lang ever wrote:
The bones of Agamemnon are a show,

And ruined is his royal monument.
Here again are our old friends, o's, contrasted with

broad a's; and here are m's and n's and r's. On the other
hand, the short i sound, and the /, convey a sense of
TONE-COLOR I07
littleness, of attenuation. See Mercutio's description of

Queen Mab's chariot:
Drawn by a /earn of little atomies.

—Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet.
Bu^ as for faeries that will fli/.
To make the greensward fresh,

I hold them exqmsitoly knit,
But all too spare of flesh.
—Tennyson, The Talking Oak.
We have seen how Matthew Arnold and Tennyson used
long vowels and sonorous consonants to convey one aspect
of the ocean, "Long, withdrawing roar," "Cold, heavy-
plunging foam." Notice how another view of the sea
is exquisitely given in this rendition of a line of Homer:
The innumerable, twinkling smile of ocean.
Note the effect of the many short syllables reflecting the

light, like facets of a diamond. The same effect of short
syllables may be seen in Shakspeare's
The multitudinous seas incarnadine.

—Macbeth.
The effects which these poets attained were not the
results of accident, therefore let no young poet think that
conscious and painstaking selection of word- sounds is
beneath him. Coleridge would not have dreamed "Kubla

Khan" in its perfection if he had not been in the habit
of choosing his words with care when he was awake.
Io8 THE ART OF VERSIFICATION
Tennyson worked two days over three lines of "Come

into the Garden, Maud."
Stevenson says, "One sound suggests, echoes, demands,
and harmonises with another, and the art of rightly using
these concordances is the final art in literature."
1. If the poet's ear is not sensitive to musical sounds,

do you believe that through study and attention he may
produce pleasing tone-color effects?
2. Do you suppose that Shakespeare or Keats relied
upon the ear alone to secure euphony?
3. Recall one or two popular, classical songs, and
mark the number of words, prolonged by the tune, that
are in themselves rich in tone-color.
4. In any of the sustained passages in Shakespeare's
plays, note the generous use of assonant words.
5. Analyze Coleridge's stanza describing Christabel's
room, pointing out the recurrence of certain sounds as
an element of beauty.
6. Select three poems full of tone-color and point
out at least three lines of each which illustrate this quality.
7. Revise one of your own poems with a view to
improving its tone values.
8. Write a list of themes which seem to you to be
inviting, with this chapter in mind.
9. Work up one of them into a short poem, using
tone-color discriminatingly.
10. Write two stanzas descriptive of the sea (a) in
color; (b) in storm, seeking chiefly beautiful tonal
effects.
CHAPTER XI
METERS AND THE STANZA
Every poet, then, is a versifier; every fine poet an excellent
one; and he is the best whose verse exhibits the greatest amount
of strength, sweetness, straightforwardness, unsuperfluousness,
variety, and oneness; —
oneness, that is to say, consistency, in
the general impression, metrical and moral; and variety, or
every pertinent diversity of tone and rhythm, in the process.
—Leigh Hunt, What is Poetry?
The poet who has an idea and an emotion to express

is early confronted with the choice of a meter. Often,
no doubt, he has no conscious choice in the matter —his
idea and his emotion come to him pulsing with a rhythm
of their own, and he has only to follow his own first feeling.
So we may say that a good poem usually brings its meter

with it, and the form is the inevitable outcome of the
germ.
At other times, however, the poet must deliberately
select the form best fitted to embody his thought and feel-
ing. He may choose one of the time-honored patterns

for his verse, or he may weave
a new one for himself; but
whatever his him respect its conventions,
choice, let
rejoice in its complications, and find a new inspiration in

its difficulties. He must first show himself a master of
regularity and then admit no irregularity but such as may
arise from the inner meaning of his verse. He must prove
that he can keep laws before he presumes to ignore them.
—
no THE ART OF VERSIFICATION
It will do him no harm to experiment in all familiar meters

of English verse, and then when his great idea comes to
him, he will have ready a fitting garment in which to
clothe it. His subject will largely determine his choice
he will not be likely to write an Ode on Hunting, or a
Triolet on the Death of Lincoln.
Meters, like other things, follow the fashion and change
with the changing years. Let us glance at some that were
popular in their day. Note, however, that these are not
now considered primarily as examples of rhyme, even
when the old names would so indicate, but as specimens of
meter and stanza, and therefore showing the sequence
of rhymes in the stanza arrangement as well as the line
measure.
I. Types of Stanza
Riding Rhyme. —The meter of Chaucer's "Canterbury

Tales" was called Riding Rhyme from the fact that the
Tales were told as the pilgrims rode in company from
London to Canterbury. It consists of iambic pentameter
lines — each therefore containing five iambic feet —rhymed
in couplets. The spelling has been slightly modernized
in the following example from the opening lines of the
Prologue, with accents added to indicate the extra sylla-

bles, for many words have shortened their pronunciation
in later centuries.
When that Aprile with his showers swoot^ (a)
The drought of March hath pierced to the root, (a)
And bathed every vein in such liqour (b)
* Sweet.
—— "
METERS AND THE STANZA III
Of which virtiie engendered is the flower; (b)
When Zephynis eke with his sweete breath

Inspired hath in every holt and heath
The tender croppes, and the younge sun
Hath in the Ram his halfe course yrun,
And smalle fowles maken melody,
That sleepen all the night with open eye,
So pricketh hem^ natiire in hir courages^
Then longen folk to go on pilgrimages
And palmers for to seeken strange strands,
To feme hallows^ couth^ in sundry lands;
And specially, from every shires end
Of Engeland, to Canterbury they wend,
The holy blissful martyr^ for to seek,
That hath them holpen when that they were sick.
Rhyme Royal was the stanza of Chaucer's "Troylas

and Crysede," and of King James's "The King's Quhair.
It is thus imitated by William Morris, whose modern
English will serve us better than the aforementioned
archaic verse. The measure is iambic pentameter. The
letters in the margin indicate the sequence of the
rhymes.
In a far country that I cannot name, (a)
And on a year long ages past away, (b)
1 Them.
^ Their hearts.
^ Distant holy men, or saints.
* Known.
' Thomas k Becket.
—
A King there dwelt, in rest and ease and fame, (a)
And richer than the Emperor is today; (b)
The very thought of what this man might say (b)
From dusk to dawn kept many a lord awake, (c)
For fear of him did many a great man quake, (c)

— The Earthly Paradise, The Proud King.
Poulter's Measure. —In Queen Elizabeth's day, the
so-called Poulter's Measure was said to be the commonest
sort of verse. It took its name from the poulterers, who
gave twelve eggs for the first dozen and fourteen for the
second —a custom long since abandoned! The meter
consists of a line of iambic hexameter — six iambic feet
alternating with a line of seven, iambic heptameter.
The fear of future foes exiles my present joy.

And wit me warnes to shun such snares as threaten
mine annoy.
—Queen Elizabeth.
Ottava Rima (eighth rhyme) was a stanza of eight lines,
the first six, forming the sestet, rhymed alternately, and

the two last a rhyming couplet. It was used by Spenser,
Milton, Keats and Byron. The meter is iambic penta-
meter.
Thus sang the uncouth swain to the rocks and rills, (a)
While the still morn went out with sandals gray, (b)
He touch'd the tender stops of various quills, (a)
With eager thought warbling his Doric lay: (b)
And now the sun had stretch'd out all the hills, (a)
And now was dropt into the western bay; (b)

METERS AND THE STANZA II3
At last he rose, and twitch'd his mantle blue; (c)
Tomorrow to fresh woods, and pastures new. (c)

—Milton, Lycidas.
The Spenserian Stanza was invented by Edmund
Spenser and is always called by his name.
And on his brest a bloodie Crosse he bore, (a)
The deare remembrance of his dying Lord, (b)
For whose sweete sake that glorious badge he wore, (a)
And dead, as living, ever him ador'd: (b)
Upon his shield the like was also scor'd, (b)
For soveraine hope which in his helpe he had (c)
Right faithful true he was in deede and word, (b)
But of his cheere did seeme too solemne sad; (c)
Yet nothing did he dread, but ever was ydrad. (c)

— The Faerie Queene, Book I, Canto I.
This stanza consists of nine lines, eight in iambic

pentameter, and the ninth an Alexandrine —which will
be explained presently. The rhyme-scheme is irregular,

as the key letters point out. In his great poem Spenser
sustains this difficult meter for 3848 stanzas, a feat which
would daunt our modern poets. It is also the stanza
used in Byron's "Childe Harold," Burns's "Cotter's

Saturday Night," and Keats's "Eve of St. Agnes."
Terza Rinta (third rhyme) is in iambic rhythm, not
necessarily pentameter, and is usually written continuously
and not in stanzas. It consists of groups of three lines;
each rhyme is used three times; at the end of the canto or

poem an extra line is added which rhymes with the middle
114 THE ART or VERSIFICATION
line of the preceding group of three. It is the meter of

Dante's "Divine Comedy," and has seldom been essayed
in English. Mrs. Browning used it in "Casa Guidi Win-
"
dows.
For me who stand in Italy today (a)
Where worthier poets stood and sang before, (b)
I kiss their footsteps, yet their words gainsay, (a)
I can but muse in hope upon this shore (b)
Of Golden Arno as it shoots away (a)
Through Florence' heart beneath her bridges four, (b)
Heroic Couplets. —In the i8th Century, lines rhymed

in pairs, called couplets, were the favorite form. When
written in iambic pentameter, these were called Heroic
Couplets, the meter of Pope's translation of the "Iliad,"
a herbic poem.
Achilles' wrath to Greece the direful spring

Of woes unnumber'd, heav'nly goddess sing.
An Alexandrine is a line consisting of a series of six

iambic feet, or twelve syllables, called iambic hexameter.
The last line of the Spenserian Stanza is an Alexandrine,
illustrated in the foregoing stanza from Spenser's "Faerie
Queen."
A needless Alexandrine ends the song

That like a wounded snake drags its slow length
along.
—Pope.
Elegiac Verse, or verse composed as a memorial of the

dead, was composed of alternate dactylic hexameters
and pentameters.
In the hexameter rises the fountain's silvery column

In the pentameter aye ||
falling in melody back.
— Coleridge, Translation from Schiller.
Notice in the foregoing pentameter the long syllable

followed by the caesura, or pause, after the word "aye."
The caesura is treated in the chapter on Blank Verse.
Common Meter is a four-line stanza written in alternate

iambic tetrameter and trimeter, with alternate lines
rhymed.
God moves in a mysterious way

His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.
—COWPER.
Short Meter is a four-line stanza with lines one, two,
and four in iambic trimeter, and the third line a tetrameter.
The alternate lines are rhymed.
To comfort and to bless.

To find a balm for woe.
To tend the lone and fatherless
Is angel's work below.
— M. W. How.
Il6 THE ART OF VERSIFICATION
Long Meter is a four-line stanza written in iambic
tetrameter, the lines rhyming in pairs.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow,

Praise Him all creatures here below, etc.
The Couplet. —We have spoken of Pope's use of the

couplet; the word is also used to denote a poem of two
lines, as the following "Inscription for a Well in Memory
of the Martyrs of the War," by Emerson, which is in
rhymed iambic pentameter.
Fall, stream, from Heaven to bless; return as well;

So did our sons; Heaven met them as they fell.
It is also used to designate a stanza of two lines, as in
Tennyson's "Locksley Hall," written in trochaic octame-

ter, with the couplets rhymed.
Knowledge comes but wisdom lingers, and I linger on the

shore.
And the individual withers, and the world is more and

more.
The Triplet. —Tennyson uses the triplet, or stanza of

three lines, in iambic tetrameter, and but one rhyme to
the stanza.
A still small voice spake unto me,

"Life is so full of misery
Were it not better not to be?"
— 2^ he Two Voices.
As a three-line poem the triplet is much more rare.
Prof. Brander Matthews, in his "A Study of Versifica-
tion," quotes the following from Robert Herrick:
On Himself
Lost to the world, lost to himself, alone
Here now I rest imder this marble stone,

In depth of silence, heard and seen of none.
The Quatrain is, correctly speaking, a poem of four
lines embodying a complete thought, as this of Father

Tabb on "Fame:"
Their noonday never knows

What names immortal are:
'Tis night alone that shows

How star surpasseth star.
The four-line stanza, however, sometimes called the

quatrain, is our most familiar form of verse. We have
seen the ordinary arrangement in Longfellow's "Psalm
of Life," where the alternate lines rhyme, and the meter
is trochaic tetrameter, with the second and fourth lines
one syllable short.
Tell me not in mournful numbers.

Life is but an empty dream;
For the soiil is dead that slumbers.
Tennyson varies the rhyme-sequence in "In Memoriam"

Il8 THE ART OF VERSIFICATION
by coupling his first and fourth lines, and his second and
third. The meter here is iambic tetrameter.
I holdit truth with one who sings (a)
To one clear harp in divers tones, (b)
That men may rise on stepping-stones (b)
Of their dead selves to higher things. (a)
In Fitzgerald's translation of Omar Khayyam we have

still another rhyme arrangement; the lines are iambic
pentameter.
Indeed the idols I have loved so long, (a)
Have done my credit in men's minds much wrong; (a)
Have drowned my glory in a shallow cup, (b)
And sold my reputation for a song. (a)
Tennyson gives us still another type of the quatrain,

which is called second and fourth line short, and is patently
irregular throughout.
The poet in a golden clime was born.

With golden stars above,
Dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn.
The love of love.

— The Poet.
The same poet uses the quatrain with interesting and
effective freedom in "Crossing the Bar," which is a
miracle of variety producing imity.
:
First and Fourth Line Short presents still another

quatrain type. Notice the poet's use of irregularities
in the rhythm.
Whither, midst falling dew, (a)
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, (b)
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue (a)
Thy solitary way? (b)

—Bryant, To a Waterfowl.
The Five-Line Stanza. —Of this there are many varieties.
A favorite one is rhymed a, h, a, h, a; another, a, b, a, a, b;
another, a, b, a, b, b.
That was I, you heard last night, (a)
Where there rose no moon at all, (b)
Nor, to pierce the strained and tight (a)
Tent of heaven, a planet small (b)
Life was dead, and so was light. (a)

—Browning, A Serenade at the Villa.
Tonight this sunset spreads two golden wings (a)
Cleaving the western sky; (b)
Winged too with wind it is, and winnowings (a)
Of birds; as if the day's last hour in rings (a)
Of strenuous flight must die. (b)
—RossETTi, Sunset Wings.

Teach us, sprite or bird, (a)
What sweet thoughts are thine; (b)
I have never heard (a)
Praise of love or wine (b)
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine, (b)

— Shelley, The Skylark.
A Six-Line Stanza, sextet, or sestet, may be rhymed

a, b, a, b, a, b, or a, b, a, b, c, c, or a, b, c, c, b, a.
She walks in beauty, like the night (a)
Of cloudless climes and starry skies; (b)
And all that's best of dark or bright (a)
Meet in her aspect and her eyes; (b)
Thus mellowed to that tender light (a)
Which heaven to gaudy day denies, (b)

—
Byron, She Walks in Beauty.
My days among the dead are past; (a)
Aroimd me I behold, (b)
Where'er these casual eyes are cast, (a)
The mighty minds of old: (b)
My never failing friends are they, (c)
With whom I converse day by day. (c)
— SouTHEY, The Scholar.
Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach; (a)
Three fields to cross till a farm appears; (b)
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch (c)
And blue spurt of a lighted match, (c)
And a voice less loud, through its joys and fears, (b)
Then the two hearts beating each to each! (a)

—Browning, Meeting at Night.
Burns's favorite six-line stanza runs a, a, a, b, a, b.
Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flow'r, (a)
Thou's met me in an evil hour, (a)
For Imavm crush amang the stoure (a)
Thy slender stem: (b)

METERS AND THE STANZA 121
To spare thee now is past my pow'r (a)
Thou bonnie gem. (b)

— To a Mountain Daisy.
Tail-Rhyme Stanza is a stanza of which the rhyme order
is a, a, b, c, c, b. The b, b is the tail-rhyme and the lines
containing it are usually shorter than the others.
And if I should live to be (a)
The last leaf upon the tree, (a)
In the spring, (b)
Let them laugh, as I do now, (c)
At the old forsaken bough (c)
Where I cling. (b)

—
Holmes, The Last Leaf.
There may be more than two lines of the sections a, a,
and c, c, as in the following:
Fair stood the wind for France, (a)
When we our sails advance, (a)
Nor now to prove our chance (a)
Longer will tarry; (b)
But putting to the main, (c)
At Caux the mouth of Seine, (c)
With all his martial train (c)
Landed King Harry. (b)

—
Drayton, The Battle of Agincourt.
2. Indenting
This seems a fitting point at which to call attention

to the almost universal custom of indenting, or setting
in, certain lines of a stanza in writing, or preparing it for

the printer. The practice varies so greatly that no fixed
rule may be stated, but an examination of the stanzas
quoted in this chapter will show that the three prevail-
ing arrangements are to indent not at all, indent only
the first line, or align the first words of those lines which
rhyme with each other. Unless the poet feels secure
enough in his mastery to hew out a new way for himself,
it is better to follow the scheme of indentation used by

some poet who uses the type of stanza which is to be
followed in technique.
1. Look up the derivation of the words stanza and

meter.
2. Make a scrap-book collection of every possible

form of stanza, beginning with the couplet. So far as
you can, give them names and mark the accents.
3. Cut from the magazines ten different sorts of

stanza; for example, three several quatrains would be
regarded as three kinds if the feet used were different.
4. When a thought comes to mind already moulded
in a rhythmic line, is it likely to be cast in a meter appro-
priate to its expression?
5. In reading a poem for the first time, do you find

that the meter and the stanza-forms usually attract
your attention?
6. If a meter obtrudes upon your notice, does that
suggest that its choice was unfortunate?
7. In your opinion, would some of Hood's serious
METERS AND THE STANZA 1 23
poems in jingling meter have been better had he moulded

them in forms more popular with other poets?
8. Will more than one meter be thoroughly appro-
priate to the expression of any given thought?
9. Write a line in iambic pentameter.
10. Write an Alexandrine line.
11. Select three stanza-forms shown in this chapter
and write a stanza in each style, considering fitness first
of all.
12. (a) Recast in another stanza-form a stanza from

one of the poets, (b) Apart from its poetic language, if
that is materially altered, does it suffer by the change?

13. Take an ornate passage from either Burke,
Macaulay, Emerson, or Irving, and do it over into verse.
Note that exclamatory sentences will often aid you in
this sort of translation.
14. Take one of your own quatrains and change it
into a tail-rhyme stanza.
15. Select one of your own themes, carefully consider

the most suitable meter and stanza-form, and write a
series of verses. For practice purposes, do not hesitate
to model your work on that of others, yet seek to cultivate
originality. Invent other exercises which will give you

a mastery of many metrical and stanza forms. Do a
great deal of recasting in order to attain to variety.
CHAPTER XII
IRREGULARITIES
The more inspired the poet may be and the loftier the theme,
the less likely are we to turn the crystal over in search of flaws.
When we are rapt out of ourselves we fail to notice any little
liberties the poet may have

taken with the language, and we
are ready enough to pardon them if they attract our attention.
—
Brander Matthews, A Study of Versification.
Irregularity should proceed from strength and not

from weakness. Great poets used many irregularities,
but only because they were so well able to do without

them. "Nice customs curtsey to great kings," but
ordinary mortals had better observe nice customs.
I. Irregularity is Allowable if it Indicates Difference in
Meaning.
When you do dance, I wish you

A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that.
—Shakespeare, Winter's Tale.
Here the verse dances with the extra syllable in "A
wave o' the sea."
The one red leaf, the last of its clan,
That dances as often as dance it can,

Hanging so light, and hanging so high.
On the topmost twig that looks up to the sky.
— Coleridge, Christabel.
IRREGULARITIES 1 25
Here Coleridge makes the red leaf dance with his danc-
ing verse. In his introduction to this poem he says,
"The meter of the Christabel is not, properly speaking,

irregular, though it may seem so from its being founded
on a new principle; namely, that of counting in each line
the accents, not the syllables. Though the latter may

vary from seven to twelve, yet in each line the accents
will be found to be only four. Nevertheless this occasional

variation in number of syllables is not introduced
wantonly, or for the mere ends of convenience, but in
correspondence with some transition, in the nature of the
imagery or passion."
Coleridge did good service in delivering English verse
from the fetters in which it had been bound by Pope.
A beautiful example of irregularity caused by, and
enhancing, the meaning of verse, is found in the exquisite
opening lines of Tennyson's "The Sleeping Palace."
The vary |
ing year |
with blade |
and sheaf |
Clothes and |
reclothes |
the hap | py plains. |
There is, you see, an extra syllable in the word varying.

Suppose we substitute for it the word changing.
The chang |
ing year |
with blade |
and sheaf |
Clothes and |
reclothes |
the hap | py plains. |
We have here absolute regularity and the same meaning,

but the beauty of the line has fled. The slight turn given
to Tennyson's line by the extra light syllable in varying,
makes us see the change of season, and the sound of the

y gives us pleasure as it is repeated in the sound of the

word year.
2. Other Irregularities
Elision is the partial or entire loss of a vowel-sound at

the end of a word when the next word begins a vowel,
as th' for the, V th^ for irt the, and o' th' for of the. It
is used not only to avoid a false accent but also to subdue

imimportant words in the line.
Slurring is passing lightly over unimportant syllables

for the same purposes as in the case of the elision.
Thus, radiant, or beauteous may be pronounced in the
time of two syllables; the extra syllable is not suppressed

but hurried over, giving variety and lightness to the verse.
It should be noted, however, that this sort of irregularity,
in common with all others, must be used but seldom, or
at most AAdth careful intention. Here are two good
examples:
From diamond quarries hewn and rocks of gold.

— Milton.
A violet by a mossy stone.
—Wordsworth.
Contraction is the suppression of an entire syllable.
Some words, like heaven and power, may be pronounced as
one syllable if the meter requires it. Formerly, contracted
words were written heaven, pow'r, but it is now the custom
to print them in full.
Expansion is accenting a normally silent syllable for

—
nLREGULARITIES 1 27
the sake of the meter. Some poets indicate this expansion

by the addition of an accent, as in the following example:
Adown the glen, rode armed men.

—Campbell, Lord Ullin's Daughter.
In the case of some words this practice is almost uni-

versal. The word beloved, for instance, is usually pro-
nounced as three syllables in poetry.
In Hovering Accent the stress, instead of falling defi-
nitely on one syllable, hovers between two, —between

word-accent and verse-accent. This irregularity is ex-
plained by some authorities as the introduction of a
spondee —a foot, both syllables of which are accented
into a line of another sort.
That through the green cornfield did pass.

— Shakespeare.
Wrenched Accent throws the stress definitely on an
unaccented syllable, which is intended to be read aloud
with this odd accentuation.
Sir Patrick Spens is the best sailor

That ever sailed the sea.
—Old Ballad.
Among modern poets Swinburne and Rossetti sometimes

employ the wrenched accent, but it is found mostly in
old ballads. There it seems naive enough, but in more

sophisticated verse it sounds artificial and should be
:
avoided. The following is a particularly audacious

specimen
For the stars and the winds are unto her
As raiment, as songs of the harp-player,

—Swinburne.
1. When a thought can be expressed in faultless

meter, is it ever wise to introduce an irregularity? Give
reasons for your answer.
2. What is the usual effect upon a well balanced

line of the addition of one or more syllables?
3. Should such words as heaven and hour be considered

as words of one or of two syllables?
4. May they properly be considered to have which-

ever number is desired?
5. Do such words receive more stress when they are

located at the end of a line?
6. What is meant by elision} Illustrate.
7. Write a stanza upon the theme of rain beating

upon forest trees, and attempt by the use of irregularities
in the lines to suggest something of the movement of

leaves and branches.
8. Search for examples of all the irregularities ex-
plained in this chapter. If possible, clip or copy them
from magazines for your collection. Write several
stanzas using some of the irregularities you have dis-
covered.
IRREGULARITIES 1 29
9. Point out the irregularities in a page from Shakes-

peare, Milton, or Tennyson.
10. Point out any which mar rather than improve
the verse.
11. In general, does any one form of irregularity seem
more useful than others? Which?
CHAPTER XIII
EPIC POETRY
Loose and free and of slow growth, the epic poem was for
centuries the dominant story-form. It took the wealth of ma-
terial in which the ancient world abounded and strung the
scattered stories upon a strand of personality. Thus a Ulysses
or an ^neas became the hero of tales originally told of many
another. From prehistoric times down to the years when the
printed page spread the tale open before every eye, the resident
or the traveling story-teller was almost the only purveyor of
fiction, and he was "as welcome as is a visitor with recent maga-
zines to a lighthouse on some distant and lonely island."
— Writing the Short-Story.
Reserving for later chapters the treatment of blank

verse (Chapter XIV) and hexameters (Chapter XX) as
the meters usually adopted by writers of heroic poetry,
it is now time to consider this greatest of all poetic types.
An epic is a long narrative poem which deals impressively

with some lofty theme, usually centering its action about
gods, demi-gods, or heroes.
Higher or heroic epics were the first and greatest. They

were not individual in authorship, but national — they
grew by accretion, developing from time to time by the
inclusion of the myths, legends, heroic struggles, and
religious beliefs of a people whose life they thus came to
typify and express. Naturally, they were not the pro-
duction of any one man, for there were no poets in those
days — that is, no individuals who claimed certain verses
EPIC POETRY 131
as their own. There were only singers who chanted the

traditional lines which had come down from a misty
past, and in the course of ages these lines became uniform
and polished like pebbles in the current of a brook.
Such were the Homeric poems, the "Iliad" and the
"Odyssey;" but they differ from other heroic sagas in
having come down from their crude beginnings, to con-
tinue their course through the life of the most cultivated

and artistic people of the world, like a stream, which,
starting in the rocky summits, winds its way at last
among the gardens and cities of the plain. In their final
form the Homeric epics are the arrangement of educated
as well as noble minds, and to this we owe their wonderful
unity, composition, and plot. Eventually their
arrangement was guarded by law and from early in the
fifth century, B. C, they were publicly recited at Athens

in a prescribed order.
Other national epics —the development of the recited

and not of the written poem — are the East Indian
" Mahabharata, " the Saxon "Beowulf," the Icelandic
"Sagas," the Finnish" Kalevala," and the Old German
"Niebelungen Lied." Like the Homeric poems, they
were the slow growth of generations.
Among us, there can never be a new national epic of
this impersonal character. The invention of^ printing,
the spread of education, the breaking down of national
barriers, and the fact that poets are not content to remain
anonymous, are factors which unite to render impossible

such a revival of the form.
The written or art epic is a different matter. It is the
production of one man. It is not a growth, it is something

made. Virgil's "Êneid" and Milton's "Paradise Lost"
are lofty examples of the written epic.
Dante's "Divine Comedy" may be called an epic. He
called it a comedy because, in his day, a comedy meant a
narrative that did not end tragically, while a tragedy
meant "the story of those who had fallen from high to
low estate." Tasso's "Jerusalem Delivered" and
Ariosto's "Orlando Furioso" are also art epics, and
likewise bear the names of their true authors.
An epic should tell a story, yet not comment or moralize

upon it. It may, and is pretty certain to, contain separate
episodes and dialogue. The meter must be uniform,
and we may add, the story must be interesting.
The "Odyssey," apart from its other merits, has been

called the finest story in the world; it is more interesting
than a novel, more exciting than a best-seller.
All of the great epics which are the product of other
languages may now be read in English translation, any

one of which is good enough to convey a satisfactory idea
of the original, both as regards content and form.
Make a list of all the epics you can.

Which are higher epics and which art epics?
Tell briefly the story of any one.
Examine several and copy specimens of their meters.
Write a few lines in imitation of each.

CHAPTER XIV
BLANK VERSE
That which is the glory of blank verse, as a vehicle of poetry,
is also its danger and its difficulty. Its freedom from the fetters of
rime, the infinite variability of the metrical structure of its lines,
the absence of couplets and stanzas, all assimilate it to prose. —

It is the easiest of all conceivable meters to write; it is the
hardest to write well. Its metrical requirements are next to

nothing; its poetical requirements are infinite. It was Byron,
I believe, who remarked, that it differed from other meters in
this, that whereas they required a certain proportion of lines,
some more, some less, to be good, in a blank verse every line
must be good.
—
Shadworth H. Hodgson, English Verse; quoted in
Matthews' A Study of Versification.
Blank verse is not merely unrhymed poetry, but the

term has come to mean a particular metrical form. As
commonly understood, blank verse consists of a line of
ten syllables with five beats at regular intervals — an
unaccented followed by an accented syllable, forming
five iambic feet, or iambic pentameter. This metrical
scheme, which is sometimes called English Heroic Measure,
because of its peculiar adaptability to noble or heroic
themes, is the meter of Milton's "Paradise Lost:"
Imay assert
| |
eter |
nal Prov |
idence |
And jus tify ]

the ways |
of God |
to men.
—Paradise
I |
Lost, Book I, Line 26.

—
It will be interesting to read a master poet's own des-

cription of the meter of his great poem.
I. Milton on Blank Verse
"The measure is English Heroic Verse, without rime,

as that ofHomer in Greek, and of Virgil in Latin; Rime
being no necessary Adjimct or true Ornament of Poem
or good Verse, in longer Works especially, but the In-
vention of a barbarous Age, to set off wretched matter
and lame Meeter. ***** True musical delight
consists only in apt Numbers, fit quantity of Syllables,
and the same variously drawn out from one verse into
another, not in the jingling soimd of like endings. * * *
This neglect then of Rime, so little is to be taken for a
defect, though it may seem so perhaps to vulgar readers,
that it rather is to be esteem'd an example set, the first
in English, of ancient liberty recovered to Heroic Poem

from the troublesome and modem bondage of Riming."
Although Milton terms his poem "An example set, the
first in English," was not the first English heroic poem
it
in blank verse. Henry Howard, that Earl of Surrey to

whom we owe the introduction of the sonnet, was the
first to attempt blank verse in English, in his translation
of the second and fourth books of Virgil's "Êneid. ''
The following is a specimen of Surrey's blank verse:

I lived and ran the course fortune did grant;
And under earth my great ghost now shall wend;
A goodly town I built and saw my walls;
Happy, alas, too happy, if these coasts
The Troyan ships had never touched aye.
BLANK VERSE I35
Surrey's verse has occasional roughnesses and crude-

nesses, but on the whole its effect is one of too much
uniformity and monotony, due to his tendency to regard
the line as the unit, and so to terminate his thought at
the end of each. The mind can take no wide sweep or
lofty flight when it is continually halted at each ten
syllables.
Monotony, indeed, is the great fault to be guarded

against by the amateur writer of blank verse. If he be
not careful, he will find that his series of five iambic feet
will go jogging endlessly along without relief, without
variety, without power or beauty.
To counteract this tendency, let him study the blank
verse of Milton. There is no monotony in "Paradise
Lost." The music is and this variety
endlessly varied,
is gained in two ways by the wide sweep of thought
: first,
over-leaping the bondage of the line and forming groups

or stanzas of varying length, or as Milton describes it,
"the sense variously drawn out from one verse into

another." Second, by the constant shifting of the place
of the caesura, or pause, thus delighting the ear with a
continual change of cadence.
2. Examples of Milton's Groups of Lines
If thou beest he —But O, how fallen! how changed

From him, who in the happy realms of light.
Clothed with transcendent brightness, didst outshine
Myriads though bright!
—Paradise Lost, Book I, Line 87.
He spake; and to confirm his words, outflew

Millions of flaming swords, drawn from the thighs
Of mighty cherubim; the sudden blaze
Far roimd illumined hell: highly they raged
Against the Highest, and fierce with grasped arms
Clash'd on their sounding shields the din of war,
Hurling defiance toward the vault of heaven.
—Book I, Line 669.
Milton's periods, with no hint of weakness or fatigue,

sometimes sustain a flight of as many as twenty-two
lines, before the thought and the verse alight together.
J. The CcBsura or Pause
Cowper says of blank verse, "The writer in this kind

of meter, in order that he may be musical, must exhibit
all the variations, as he proceeds, of which ten syllables
are susceptible. Between the first and the last, there is
no place at which he must not occasionally pause, and

the place of the pause must be continually shifted." '
In a line so long as a pentameter, or a hexameter, a pause

is sometimes needed in order to take breath in reciting or
reading aloud. This pause, or division, is called the

ccesura, and its place in the line is determined by the mean-
ing of the words. In classic verse, it fell at the end of a
word, but usually in the middle of a foot, and it was gov-
erned by various complicated rules which are not ob-
served in modem practice. In English verse it should fall
' Note also the quotation from Hodgson which introduces this
chapter.
BLANK VERSE I37
at the end of both foot and word, but not always at the end
of the same foot, or an effect of monotony and dull uni-
formity will be the result. Milton constantly varies the

location of the caesura with excellent effect, as the follow-
ing examples will show:
Pause after istfoot.
The careful plowman doubting stands,

Lest on the threshing-floor his hopeful sheaves
Prove chaff. X On the other side, Satan, alarm'd,
etc.
—Book IV, Line 9S5.
Pause after 2nd foot.
On his right
The radiant image of his glory sat.
His on ly Son: I
X on earth he first beheld, etc.
Book III, Line 64.
Pause after jrdfoot.
On to their mornings rural work they haste.
Among I
sweet dews |
and flowers, X where any row, etc.
Book V, Line 212.
Pause after 4th foot.
So under fiery cope together rushed

Both battles main, with ruinous assault
And in extin
|
|
guisha|ble rage X all heaven, etc.
— Book \T, Line 217.

4. Unrhymed Verse
As intimated at the beginning of this chapter, not all
unrhymed poems can justly be called blank verse, which,
as we have said, is a heroic measure. Some are lyrics,

like the following:
Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,

Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy autumn-fields.
And thinking of the days that are no more.
—^Tennyson, The Princess.
I have had playmates, I have had companions
In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
—Lamb, The Old Familiar Faces.
Browning's "One Word More" is in unrhymed, trochaic
verse and its effect is IjTical.
There they are, my fifty men and women
Naming me the fifty poems finished!

Take them, Love, the book and me together;
Where the heart lies, let the brain lie also.
I. Name an advantage that blank verse holds over

rhymed verse.
2. What special fault is most likely to creep into
blank verse?
3. What is the meaning of the word ccesura?
4. From Milton, pick out at least six examples of

its use.
BLANK VERSE I39
5. Need blank verse be always in iambic meter?

6. Would the meter of Hiawatha be properly classed
as blank verse?
7. Do you find equal enjoyment in reading blank

verse and rhymed iambic verse?
8. Can you name a modern drama, written in blank
verse, that has won popularity?
9. How does blank verse differ from the unrhymed
l)rric?
10. Write in blank verse a short description of the

country near your home.
11. Select a narrative prose passage of distinction
and recast it into epical blank verse.
12. Tell a short-story in epical blank verse. Introduce
the pause for both practice and effect.
CHAPTER XV
DRAMATIC POETRY
So many things among men have been handed down from

century to century and from nation to nation, and the human
mind is in general so slow to invent, that originality in any
department of mental exertion is everywhere a rare phenomenon.
We are desirous of seeing the result of the efforts of inventive
geniuses when, regardless of what in the same line has elsewhere
been carried to a high degree of perfection, they set to work in
good earnest to invent altogether for themselves; when they
lay the foundation of the new edifice on uncovered ground, and
draw all the preparations, all the building materials, from their
own resources. We participate, in some measure, in the joy of
success, when we see them advance rapidly from their first
helplessness and need to a finished mastery in their art.
—A. W. VON ScHLEGEL, Dramatic Art and Literature.
The subject of dramatic poetry would require a volume

in itself, yet only a brief treatment can be accorded it here.
Although English dramas have been written in rhyme,

the loftiest and most dignified meter for Enghsh dramatic
poetry is blank verse. But the blank verse of drama
necessarily differs in several respects from that of the
epic. The epic, as lofty narrative, relates what has hap-
pened, and what certain characters did and said; its
style therefore must be stately and uniform. Drama,

upon the other hand, is not narrative, but shows us what
is happening, and the characters present themselves to
us by what they say; for this reason the style of dramatic
DRAMATIC POETRY I4I
blank verse must be more realistic and varied than that

of heroic poetry.
It would not do to have Caliban, the brutish monster

in Shakespeare's drama of "The Tempest," talk like
Miranda, the young and beautiful heroine of the same
play. Listen to Caliban:
All the infections that the sun sucks up

From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall, and make him
By inch-meal a disease!
— The Tempest, Act II, Scene II.
Miranda's speeches, on the contrary, are full of grace

and charm:
I do not know
One of my sex; no woman's face remember
Save, from my glass, mine own, nor have I seen
More that I may call men, than you, good friend,
And my dear father.

— The Tempest, Act III, Scene I.
More latitude and irregularity are also allowable in the
blank verse of drama than in that of the epic. Here,

however, a word of caution is needed:
We must insist on the points made in the chapter on
Irregularities: that irregularities should proceed from
the nature of the subject itself and not from any weakness
of the poet; and that the thought must mould the form
if the form is to enhance the thought.
But some latitude, we have said, is allowable. For
instance, a drama may be interspersed with lyrical pas-
sages. In "The Tempest," Ariel, the dainty spirit, not

only sings several songs but in one place speaks in a
rhymed lyrical measure:
Before you can say Come and Go,

And breathe twice and cry, So, So;
;
Each one, tripping on his toe.

Will be here with mop and mowe:
Do you love me, master? No?
—Act IV, Scene I.
A poetic drama may also be interspersed with prose

passages, a thing which would be quite impossible in an
epic. Shakespeare's scenes of buffoonery are often written
in prose.
The Dramatic Pause, a virtuous irregularity, which

drops a syllable, may be when the necessary
used
rhetorical pause after an exclamation by a speaker would
fill out the line.
I think I hear them —Standi who's there?

—Hamlet, Act Scene I, I.
Here the actor pauses to listen after the words "hear

them." He pauses again after the exclamation "Standi"
and these two pauses fill out the time of the line.
Again, the dramatic pause may be used when the

thought or emotion requires a pause. Bernardo, in the
first scene of "Hamlet," relates his encounter with the
ghost and says:
—
DRAMATIC POETRY I43
When yon same star, that's westward from the pole,
Had made his course to illimie that part of heaven

Where now it bums, Marcellus, and myself,
The bell then beating one,
and Marcellus exclaims,
Peace, break thee oft, look, where it comes again!

—Act I, Scene I.
Here one speaker interrupts the other and the line is
left broken off.
For Hecuba!
What's Hecuba to him or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her?
—Hamlet, Act II, Scene II.
Here the speaker pauses to consider his thought and

the thought is emphasized by the pause.
Feminine Endings, or double endings, constitute an-
other variant used in dramatic blank verse. It is a species
of irregularity whereby an extra syllable is added at the
end of each line when it would normally end without it.
Let's dry our eyes and thus far hear me, Crom [
well;
And, —when I am forgotten, as I shall |

be;
And sleep in dull cold marble, where no men |
tion
Of me more must be heard of, say I taught — thee.
—King Henry VIII, Act
|
III, Scene II.
Light Endings are those which terminate with personal

and relative pronouns, or auxiliaries, such as /, they, thou,
am, are, be, can, which admit of being followed by a

slight pause.
But 0, how oddly will it sound that I

Must ask my child forgiveness!
— The Tempest, Act V, Scene I.
Weak Endings are prepositions and conjunctions like
for, from, if, of, or, which allow no pause after them.
—"for
In those unfledged days was my wife a girl."
—A W interns Tale, Act I, Scene II.
End-Stopped Lines, in dramatic blank verse, are those

which are complete in themselves, and which terminate,
therefore, either with a considerable pause or as a complete
sentence. In Shakespeare's early plays we find that his
thought had a tendency to be bound by the unit of

the line, as was the case with the blank verse of Surrey,
and we therefore find a much larger proportion of end-

stopped lines in his earlier than in his later plays.
Now, madam, summon up your dearest spirits;

Consider who the king your father sends;
To whom he sends; and what's his embassy:
—Love's Labor's Lost, Act II, Scene I.
Run-On Lines are those in which the sense is carried on

without pause to the succeeding lines, the sentence run-
ning, therefore, to its logical close.
DRAMATIC POETRY I45
Investme in my motley; give me leave

To speak my mind, and I will through and through
Cleanse the foul body of the infected world.
—As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII.
Shakespeare will remain the English mine of wealth

for the student of the poetic drama, yet no student of
blank verse can afford to neglect Milton. For varied
specimens of the beautiful use of this meter, let him read
Keats's "Hyperion," Shelley's "Prometheus Unbound,''
Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey," Tennyson's "Idyls of
the King," and "Ulysses," and Browning's "The Ring

and the Book."
As for present-day progress in the poetic drama, the
recent notable revival of interest in a domain of poetry
which so long remained unattempted, is a significant and

encouraging fact, the dramas of Mr. Stephen Phillips
being especially noble efforts in a high cause, and well
worthy of study.
1. In what respects does blank verse in the drama

differ from that in the epic?
2. Write a few lines in blank verse, introducing

exclamations, questions and invectives, and experiment
with pauses of different duration, noting the increased
or decreased emphasis, and the effect upon the rhythm.
3. What constitutes a weak ending to a line?
4. Is a weak ending ever desirable?

5. Why are many consecutive end-stopped lines to

be avoided?
6. Make a list of as many varieties of dramatic
blank-verse couplets as you can, giving examples of each.

Any group of two lines will serve as a couplet for this
purpose.
7. Using only a summary, like Lamb's "Tales from
Shakespeare, " write one of the speeches made by a leading
character in one of the Comedies, using about twenty
lines. Follow Shakespeare's meter.
8. Do the same for one of the tragedies.
9. Recast one of these, using at least half end-stopped
lines.
10. From Shakespeare, give examples of all the char-

acteristics of dramatic blank verse referred to in this
chapter.
CHAPTER XVI
THE ODE
From the time of Drummond of Hawthomdento our own,
some of the noblest flights of English poetryhave been taken on
the wings of this verse; but with ordinary readers it has been
more or less discredited by the far greater number of abortive
efforts, on the part sometimes of considerable poets, to adapt
it to purposes with which it has no expressional correspondence;
or to vary it by rhythmical movements which are destructive

of its character.
—Coventry ^Patmore, Prefatory Note to The Unknown Eros.
Perhaps no form of verse has suffered more at the hands

of English poets than the ode. The Greek Pindaric ode,
—the ode made famous by Pindar—was intended to be
accompanied by music and dancing, and the poet who
wrote the words usually composed the music too. The
Pindaric ode was divided into strophe, antistrophe, and
epode. The strophe and antistrophe were always identical
in structure and were sung to the same tune; in the
strophe the chorus moved from a given spot on the stage

to the right; in the antistrophe they moved to the left,
thus retracing their steps. The epode varied from the other
two sections, both in choral movement and in music, and
was sung by the chorus standing still. Ben Jonson in-
troduced the Pindaric ode into England and carefully
followed the classical form, although he found few imita-
tors. We give the following interesting and curious
148 - THE ART OF VERSIFICATION
example by Ben Jonson (1629). As will be seen, its
several parts are of unequal merit.
A Pindaric Ode on the Death of Sir H. Morison
The Strophe, or Turn
It is not growing like a tree

In bulk, doth make men better be;
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sear.
A lily of a day
Is fairer far, in May,
Although it fall and die that night;
It was the plant and flower of light,
In small proportions we just beauties see;.
And in short measures life may perfect be.
The Antistrophe, or Counter-turn
Call, noble Lucius, then for wine, •
And let thy looks with gladness shine;

Accept this garland, plant it on thy head,
And think, nay know, thy Morison's not dead.
He leap'd the present age,
Possess'd with holy rage,
To see that bright eternal day;
Of which we priests and poets say
Such truths as we expect for happy men:
And there he lives with memory, and Ben.
—
THE ODE 149
The Epode, or Stand
Jonson, who sung this of him, ere he went,

Himself, to rest.
Or taste a part of that full joy he meant
To have express'd,
In this bright asterism!
Where it were friendship's schism,

Were not his Lucius long with us to tarry.
To separate these twi-
Lights, the Dioscuri
And keep the one half from his Harry.
But fate doth so alternate the design,
Whilst that in heaven, this light on earth must shine.
Gray's "Progress of Poesy" and "The Bard" follow
the regular Pindaric form.

Cowley introduced what he called Pindaric odes, but
he misunderstood the Greek structure, for he and his
many imitators seemed to think that an ode consisted
in a bombastic poem with lines of irregular length, and
rhymes at irregular intervals; but even in spite of this
license he complains of the diflEiculties of the form and

compares it to a Pegasus who
"will no unskilful touch endure.

But flings writer and reader too that sits not sure."
Another class of odes is imitated from the choral odes

of the Greek drama.
Edmund Gosse says that the ode is "Any strain of
— !
enthusiastic and exalted lyrical verse, directed to a fixed

purpose, and dealing progressively with one dignified
theme." The lines are iambic, of varying length, and
"the License to rhyme at indefinite intervals is coimter-
balanced by unusual frequency in the recurrence of the
same rhyme. " The varying length of line should indicate
the changing feeling of the poem, the deeper and severer
portions being written in the longer lines, the lighter
thoughts in the shorter meters.
Wordworth's "Ode on Intimations of Immortality" is
considered the noblest English example of the irregiilar

form. We give the opening stanza, but the whole ode should
be read and studied, particularly for the appropriateness
of its varying meters.
There was a time when meadow, grove and stream.

The earth, and every common sight
To me did seem
Apparell'd in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it has been of yore,
Turn wheresoe'er I may.
By night or day.
The things which I have seen I now can see no more
Read this connection Dryden's "Song for Saint

in
Cecilia's Day," and "Alexander's Feast;" and Tenny-

son's "Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington."
There is a large group of very beautiful so-called odes
in English, which are really lofty lyrics with a regular
"
THE ODE 151
stanzaic form. Such are Wordsworth's "Ode to Duty,"

Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind," and the odes of Keats,
notably the "Ode on a Grecian Urn" and "Ode to the
Nightingale.
An ode should be noble in theme and treatment, stately
without pedantry, beautiful without redundant orna-
ment. It should be a sustained flight at a high altitude,
and it is perhaps not to be regretted, in view of these
requirements, that the form is somewhat out of fashion,
for a commonplace ode is the most banal and unnecessary

of productions.
1. Is an ode in your opinion the most dignified

vehicle for the expression of exalted thought? Give your
reasons.
2. What is a strophe? Explain its origin.
3. Could an ode be properly written in trochaic

verse?
4. By what marks do you recognize an ode?
5. Name a good ode not mentioned in this chapter.
6. Analyze it for subject matter.
7. Analyze it for form.
8. Does an ode ever embody an epic tale?
9. Give two original subjects for odes.
10. Write the beginning of an ode in irregular form

upon a theme that seems to you suitable to be cast in that
form.
Note: Exercise 10 may be expanded at will so as to include a

completed ode.
CHAPTER XVII
THE BALLAD
The narrative of the communal ballad is full of leaps and
omissions; the style is simple to a fault ; the diction is spontane-
ous and free. Assonance frequently takes the place of rhyme,
and a word often rhymes with itself. There is a lack of poetic
adornment in the style quite as conspicuous as the lack of reflec-
tion and moralizing in the matter. Metaphor and simile are
rare and when found are for the most part standing phrases
common to all the ballads; there is never poetry for poetry's
sake. —F. B. Gummere, The Ballad, Warner Library.
The ballad originally was a narrative poem in lyric
form with no known individual authorship, having been

preserved to us by oral tradition. As a poetic form it is
well worth studying, not alone for its narrative and poetic
interest but for its vigor, picturesque quality, and spontan-
eity. The true ballad, of course, is a finished chapter, but
modern imitations now and then appear.
The ballad-meter of England and Scotland was taken
in imitation from the septenary, a rhymed Latin hymn
meter of seven feet, or accents. Ballads therefore were

originally written in long lines, as in the following, which
has been slightly modernized in spelling:
The Ancient Ballad of Chevy Chase

The Perse out of Northumberlande, and a vowe to God
mayde he
!
THE BALLAD 153
That he wolde hunte m the mountayns of Chyviat within

days three.
These long lines, technically known as fourteens as
they often numbered fourteen syllables, were afterwards

broken up into stanzas of four short lines of iambic
tetrameter alternated with trimeter, which accounts for

the two unrhymed lines in our modern versions.
Fair Annie of Lochroyan
Tak' down, tak' down, the mast o' goud;

Set up the mast o' tree;
111 sets it a forsaken lady
To sail sae gallantlie.
Tak' down, tak' down, the sails o' silk;
Set up the sails o' skin;
111 sets the outside to be gay,

Whan there 's sic grief within
This now forms our modern ballad measure. It
must be noted, however, that the iambus is often freely

mingled with other feet, chiefly the anapaest, so that it is
not always easy to scan the ballad in iambic feet.
Ballad poetry makes effective use of repetition and

contrast as is shown in the above example.
One of the most dramatic of the old ballads is the grue-
some "Edward, Edward," a dialogue between mother
and son in which the mother finally worms from the
young man the admission that he has killed his father at
her instigation.
"
Quhy dois zour brand sae drop wi bluid,

Edward, Edward?
Quhy dois zour brand sae drop wi bluid
And quhy sae sad gang zee O?
0, I hae kill'd my hauke sae guid,
Mither, Mither,
O, I hae kill'd my hauke sae guid,
And I had nae mair bot hee, O.
Ballads, like all make large

folk poetry, use of the
refrain, or burden. They were chanted or "lilted" by
one person, and the recurrent refrain gave opportunity
for the bystanders to join in the chorus. Sometimes it
referred to the subject of the ballad and sometimes it did

not. This feature has been successfully imitated in the
ballads of some modern poets. Rossetti, a true lover of

the ballad form, uses three refrains in "Sister Helen."
Elingsley uses an irregular refrain in "The Sands of Dee.
Macaulay, in his spirited "Ivry, " uses the character-
istic ballad repetition.
A thousand spurs are striking deep, a thousand

spears in rest,
A thousand knights are pressing close behind the
snow-white crest.
The fact that a thousand knights would have two

thousand spurs, does not impair the vigor of the verse.
The recurrence of the words, "King Henry of Navarre"
at the end of each stanza has the effect of a refrain.
—
THE BALLAD 1 55
In this connection, study some of the great chants of

the Bible, like "The Song of Moses and the Children of
Israel," in the 15th chapter of Exodus, where Miriam
sings the refrain:
"Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously;

the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea;"
and the Song of Deborah (Judges V), the Song of Hannah

(I Samuel II), and its echo in the Magnificat. (St.
Luke: "1:46.)
Tennyson's "Lady Clare," and Longfellow's "Wreck

of the Hesperus," are beautiful examples of the modern
ballad, and Kipling has breathed new life into the old
form in many a spirited poem.
1. How many metrical feet compose the usual ballad

line?
2. How does any ballad you may select differ from a

selected short-story?
3. Tell the story of an old English ballad in a brief

prose paragraph.
4. Select a short-story and narrate it in ballad form.
Be careful to adopt a suitable meter.
5. Give three themes suitable for modern ballads

these themes need not be original, but may be suggested
by current stories.
6. Write the prose outline for a short ballad, using
some current event of romantic interest.
7. Take an episode from Homer or Virgil^ and recast
it in ballad form.
8. How would you account for the fact that the fimc-
tions of the early ballad are now nearly always entrusted

to prose narrative?
— -
CHAPTER XVIII
THE LYRIC
However skilled the singer, quality and charm are inborn.
Something of them, therefore, always graces the folk-songs of
a peasantry, the ballads and songs, let us say, of Ireland and
Scotland. Theirs is the wilding flavor which Lowell detects:
"Sometimes it is
A leafless wilding shivering by the wall;

But I have known when winter barberries
Pricked the effeminate palate with surprise
Of savor whose mere harshness seemed divine."
When to this the artist-touch is added, then the wandering,

—
uncapturable movement of the pure lyric more beautiful for
its breaks and studied accidentals and most effective discords
is ravishing indeed: at last you have the poet's poetry that is

supernal. Its pervading quintessence is like the sheen of flame
upon a glaze in earth or metal. Form, color, sound, unite and
in some mysterious way become lambent with delicate or im-
passioned meaning. Here beauty is most intense. Charm is
the expression of its expression, the measureless under-vibration,
the thrill within the thrill. We catch from its suggestion the
very impulse of the lyrist; we are given the human tone, the
light of the eye, the play of feature, —
all, in fine, which shows
the poet in the poem and makes it his and not another's. —
Edmund Clarence Stedman, The Nature and Elements oj Poetry.
A lyric originally meant a song fit to be sung to the

accompaniment of a lyre, but in modern usage it has
come to have a broader meaning, for many lyrics are not
songs at all. The lyric may be defined as any short,
158 THE ART OF VERSLFICATION
spontaneous personal poem which is musical in form and

expressive of a single complete idea.
The several points of this definition will need some
explanation and illustration.
Characteristics of the Lyric
Brevity. —Poe probably had the lyric in mind when

he made his famous dictum that there could not be a
good long poem. Certainly it would be tiresome to pro-
long a personal poetic expression, and impossible to do

so were the IjTic properly confined to a highly unified
theme. In nothing do yoimg poets err more than in
allowing their productions too great a length. For the
purpose of determining current usage, it is decidedly
worth while to make a careful study of the six or eight
magazines which seek to print the best verse obtainable

—and to keep well within the average length, which will
be found to lie somewhere near sixteen lines.
Spontaneity and Personality. —As illustrating particu-
larly these joint qualities, examine the following verses by

Sir Richard Lovelace. They have been called a perfect
lyric.
To LucASTA, ON Going to the Wars
Tell me not, Sweet, I am unkind

That from the nunnery
Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind,
To war and arms I flee.
;
THE LYRIC 159
True, a new mistress now I chase,

The first foe in the field;
And with a stronger faith embrace

A sword, a horse, a shield.
Yet this inconstancy is such

As you too shall adore
I could not love thee, Dear, so much,

Loved I not Honor more.
Louise Imogen Guiney, herself a lyric poet of sweetness

and power, in her "Footnote to a Famous Lyric" sings
of the foregoing poem:
And till your strophe sweet and bold,

So lovely aye, so lonely long,
Love's self outdo, dear Lovelace! hold
The pinnacles of song.
Lovelace's charming lyric is not only supposed to
express the author's personal feelings, but it expresses

them in such a spontaneous manner as to make the poem
seem an impremeditated outburst of the heart. And
indeed such has been the origin of many famous lyrics.
In thinking of this most popular type of poetry this point

must not be obscured —the lyric is, really or apparently,
a spontaneous expression of one's self, just as dramatic

poetry is an expression of the souls of others.
Musical Quality. —What other forms so ever may be
rough and irregular, the prosperity of the lyric lies so
largely in its melodious flow that music has fixed its very
name.
—
l6o THE ART OF VERSIFICATION
After our studies thus far, it will be patent that the

musical qualities of the lyric live in a collocation of smooth-
sounding words, grouped in lines of flowing rhythm
that is, pleasing sounds in pleasing motion.
Tennyson greatly admired the music of Burns's lyric
quoted below, and said he wished that he had written it.
My Heart's in the Highlands
My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here,

My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer,
Chasing the wild deer and following the roe.
My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go.

Though the lyric must be musical, it need not neces-
sarily be rhymed. This Tennyson proved in his famous
songs in "The Princess": "Come down maid," "Now
sleeps the crimson petal, now the white," "O Swallow,
Swallow," and the following:
Tears, Idle Tears
Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean.

Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes.
In looking on the happy autumn fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.
Lamb's "The Old, Familiar Faces," is another beauti-

ful example of the unrhymed lyric.
Unity. —A careful examination of the lyrical verse

thus far quoted will be enough to show how unified and
THE LRYIC l6l
complete the lyric must be. To introduce complexity is
to deprive it of one of its charms — simplicity.
A good lyric is probably the most exquisite and poignant

example of the poet's art, but although it is difficult to
write good ones, it is unfortunately only too easy to write
bad ones. Perhaps, though, it is not really difficult to
write good ones, but rather, as Victor Hugo said, ''Either
very easy, or impossible."
Note: The student should copy or clip from books and

magazines and daily papers lyrics that appeal to him, collecting
them in a scrap book for study and reference. Memorize the
best lyrics of Shakespeare, Lovelace, Shelley, Keats, Burns and
other masters of the art. Later, give attention to present-day
lyrists.
1. Put in writing your own definition of a lyric.
2. What is the radical difference between lyrical
and dramatic poetry?

3. Name a lyric that you are fond of and, so far as
possible, analyze its charm for you.
4. Write —with all the care possible — lyrics upon

variations of the new-old themes of love, and springtide
joy, make each poem definite and simple,
striving to
and do not nm the gamut of the passions within the limits
of a single lyric. Keep your lyric short, and when you
have polished it until you see no fault in it, put it away
and forget it — later, begin the process of polishing anew.
5. Make a list of three original lyric themes.
6. Select one, and write a lyric. Aim at compression

and perfection, writing quickly under inspiration, but
labor on it later with the patience of a diamond cutter.

A lyric should not be considered finished until the change
of any single word would mar it. Remember this impor-
tant injunction: do not allow yourself to use a single irregu-
larity unless you do so purposely, with a view to added effec-
tiveness. Irregularities that you "can't help" are defects.
7. Name six themes, not necessarily original, that

seem to you to fuse naturally into lyric form.
8. Do any of the following themes lend themselves
to lyrical utterance? Which do not? Say why: Love,
Friendship, Hate, Joy, Despair, Faith, Music, Memories
ofHome.
9. Take two of the foregoing themes and by narrowing
them, that is, by limiting them to a single and personally
important phase, formulate lyrical themes.
10. Name three themes that would seem ill suited
for lyrical treatment.
11. Write a lyric upon a theme of fire — the phase
that most appeals to you, as the Camp-fire, or the Sun,
limiting it to sixteen lines.
CHAPTER XIX
THE SONNET
It is generally agreed that sonnet is an abreviation of the
Italian sonnetto, a short strain (literally, a little sound), that
word being the diminutive of 5mo«o = sound. The sonnetto was
originally a poem recited with sound, that with a musical
is,
accompaniment, a short poem of the rispetto kind, sung to the

strains of lute or mandolin.
—William Sharp, Sonnets of This Century.
The sonnet is an Italian form of verse consisting of a

poem of fourteen lines, the arrangement of which is gov-
erned by artificial and arbitrary' rules. It appeared in
Italy at the beginning of the 12th Century, and the laws
then formulated for its composition have been observed
there since the time of Petrarch (14th Century). The
form, however, was not used in England until the reign
of Henry the Eighth, in the second century succeeding,
when Sir Thomas Wyatt introduced it by translating
one of Petrarch's sonnets into English. Wyatt left some
thirty- two sonnets and all but one followed the Italian
model.
Sonnet- writing was an accomplishment cultivated by
the great and noble, and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey,
and Sir Philip Sidney, were the next two English sonnet-
eers. Although these pioneers were familiar with the
Italian structure of inter-lacing rhymes, a simpler system
crept in and became current, but this contained nothing
of the Italian sonnet-form except the original scheme of

fourteen lines. This new type was adopted by Shake-
speare, who set the seal of his genius upon it. Neverthe-
less, the so-called English or Shakespearean sonnet is,
strictly speaking, not a sonnet at all, but a poem com-

posed of three quatrains and a couplet. The beauty of
Shakespeare's sonnets consists, not in their rhyme-scheme,
but in their imagery and choice of words.
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? (a)
Thou art more lovely and more temperate: (b)
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, (a)
And summer's lease hath all too short a date: (b)
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, (c)
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd: (d)
And every fair from fair sometime declines, (c)
By chance, or Nature's changing course, untrimm'd. (d)
But thy eternal summer shall not fade (e)
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; (f)
Nor shall death brag thou wanderest in his shade, (e)
When in eternal lines to time thou growest. (f)
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, (g)

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. (g)
—Shakespeare.
You notice in the foregoing example, the arrangement
of three quatrains, or four-line stanzas, each containing
two rhymes, and the final couplet, containing one rhyme

making a fourth division, which comes like an epilogue
or a commentary on what has gone before. The Shake-
spearean sonnet, then, contains seven rhymes.
:
THE SONNET 1 65
Now the Petrarchian, legitimate, or Italian sonnet is
entirely different. It contains but two sections instead

of four, and but four, or at most five rhymes, instead of
seven; nor does it close with a couplet.
The first section consists of eight lines, and is called
the octave. It has but two rhymes, which, as we shall
see, vary in order according to the particular sonnet-

form.
The second section consists of six lines, and is called
the sestet. It may have either two or three rhymes.

There are two regular ways of arranging the rhymes of
the octave. The first and better way is Enclosed Rhyme,
which runs a, b, b, a, a, b, b, a, and is illustrated in
Rossetti's sonnet on page 167.

The other arrangement is that of Alternate Rhyme, which
runs a, b, a, b, a, b, a, b. It is seldom used.
Sonnet from Astrophel and Stella (before 1582?)
Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show, (a)
That she, dear she! might take some pleasure of my

pain (b)
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make

her know, (a)
Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain: (b)
I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe, (a)
Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain: (b)
Oft turning others' leaves, to see if thence would flow (a)
Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sun-burn'd

brain. (b)
:
1 66 THE ART OF VERSIFICATION
But words came halting forth, wanting invention's

stay; (c)
Invention, nature's child, fled step-dame study's blows (d)

And others' feet seem'd but strangers in my way. (c)
Thus, great with child to speak, and helpless in my

throes, (d)
Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite; (e)
Fool ! said my muse to me, look in thy heart, and write, (e)
— Sir Philip Sidney.
The sestet of this sonnet closes with a couplet, and

so does not follow the regular Italian form.
The octave in a few sonnets is rhymed a, b, a, b, b, a, b, a,
but this is an exception. The following is a good example:
Homeric Unity
The sacred keep of Ilion is rent (a)
With shaft and pit; vague waters wander slow (b)
Through plains where Simois and Scamander went (a)
To war with gods and heroes long ago (b)
Not yet to dark Cassandra, lying low (b)
In rich Mycenae, do the Fates relent; (a)
The bones of Agamemnon are a show, (b)
And ruined is his royal monument. (a)
The awful dust and treasures of the Dead (c)
Has Learning scattered wide; but vainly thee, (d)
Homer, she measures with her Lesbian lead, (c)
And strives to rend thy songs: too blind is she (d)

To know the crown on thine immortal head (c)
Of indivisible supremacy. (d)

—Andrew Lang.
;
THE SONNET 1 67
In the arrangement of the rhymes of the sestet more

latitude is allowed, though the most usual order is alternate
rhyme, c, d, c, d, c, d, if two rhymes are employed as in
the foregoing, or c, d, e, c, d, e, if three rhymes are used,

as in Longfellow's "A Nameless Grave," which is given
farther on.
In the best and most regular models there is a definite
division both of sound and sense at the end of the octave,
and therefore some poets prefer, as Rossetti often chose,
to leave a space of one line between the octave and the

sestet. Other poets, Matthew Arnold for example, occa-
sionally separate the octave into two quartrains, while
still others divide the sestet into two equal stanzas.
A sonnet should embody a single theme or idea, which
should be presented in the octave, with the application
made in the sestet.
Think thou and act; tomorrow thou shalt die. (a)
Out-stretched in the sun's warmth upon the shore, (b)

Thou say'st; " Man's measured path is all gone o'er: (b)
Up all his years, -steeply, with strain and sigh, (a)
Man clomb until he touched the truth; and I, (a)
Even I, am he whom it was destined for." (b)
How should this be? Art thou then so much more (b)
Than they who sowed, that thou shouldst reap therby? (a)
Nay, come up hither. From this wave-washed mound (c)
Unto the furthest flood-brim look with me (d)
Then reach on with thy thought till it be drown'd, (c)
Miles and miles distant though the last line be, (d)
And though thy soul sail leagues and leagues beyond, — (c)
Still, leagues beyond those leagues there is more sea. (d)
—ROSSETTI.
This is a noble and impressive sonnet; it is absolutely
regular in form and beautifully illustrates what we have
just said — the octave contains the proposition, the appli-
cation is made in the sestet. The octave is written in
enclosed rhyme, and contains but two rhymes, while
the sestet is written with alternate rhyme, and also
contains two.
The greatest two English poets of the Nineteenth
Century, Tennyson and Browning, did not excel in the
sonnet. Of those which Tennyson cared to preserve,
only one, "Montenegro," is of the first class. Browning

wrote very few, none of them noteworthy.
The American poet, Longfellow, with a slenderer poetic
equipment than either of these great contemporaries, ex-
celled them both in the use of the sonnet. Perhaps his
familiarity with Italian made him sensitive to the subtle
beauties of the sonnet form. Longfellow's sonnets are

among the finest of his poems and are worthy to stand
with the most exquisite in the language. Let us read one
of them:
A Nameless Grave
"A soldier of the Union mustered out," (a)
Is the inscription on an unknown grave (b)
At Newport News, beside the salt sea wave, (b)
Nameless and dateless; sentinel or scout (a)
Shot down in skirmish, or disastrous rout (a)

THE SONNET 1 69
Of battle, when the loud artillery drave (b)
Its iron wedges through the ranks of brave (b)
And doomed battalions, storming the redout. (a)
Thou unknown hero sleeping by the sea (c)
In thy forgotten grave with secret shame ! (d)
I feel my pulses beat, my forehead burn, (e)
When I remember thou hast given for me (c)
All that thou hadst, thy life, thy very name, (d)
And I can give thee nothing in return. (e)

—Longfellow.
Notice the noble simplicity and clarity of this sonnet.
You see that the subject is stated in the octave and that
the application is made in the sestet. The octave is
written in enclosed rhyme and the sestet has three rhymes,

arranged c, d, e, c, d, e. This sonnet has also great excel-
lence in its contrasting terminal vowel sounds.
We notice that all these examples, Shakespeare's in-
cluded, are written in ten-syllable lines with the accent
falling on the 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th, and loth syllables. In
other words they are written in iambic pentameter.
Some authorities say that a sonnet must be in iambic
pentameter. This need not invariably be the case. Sir
Philip Sidney's sonnet, reproduced on page 166 is in
twelve-syllable lines, and Swinburne has given us a

spirited sonnet written in eleven, and twelve-syllable
lines in his
Nell Gwyn
Sweet heart, that no taint of the throne or the stage (a)
Could touch with unclean transformation, or alter (b)

—
To the likeness of courtiers whose consciences falter (b)

At the smile or the frown, at the mirth or the rage, (a)
Of a master whom chance could inflame or assuage, (a)
Our Lady of Laughter, invoked in no psalter, (b)
Adored of no faithful that cringe and that palter, (b)
Praise be with thee yet from a hag-ridden age. (a)
Our Lady of Pity thou wast; and to thee (c)
All England, whose sons are the sons of the sea, (c)
Gives thanks, and will hear not if history snarls (d)
When the name of the friend of her sailors is spoken : (e)
And thy lover she cannot but love by the token — (e)
That thy name was the last on the lips of King Charles, (d)
—Swinburne.
The following also contains an interesting variation
of rhyming order followed in the sestet —a variation
condemned by the purist:
The Odyssey
As one that for a weary space has lain
Lulled by the song of Circe and her wine

In gardens near the pale of Proserpine,
Where that ^gean isle forgets the main,
And only the low lutes of love complain.
And only shadows of wan lovers pine.
As such an one were glad to know the brine
Salt on his lips, and the large air again,
So gladly, from the songs of modern speech
Men turn, and see the stars and feel the free
Shrill wind beyond the close of heavy flowers.
And, through the music of the languid hours.

THE SONNET 171
They hear like ocean on a western beach

The surge and thunder of the Odyssey.
—Andrew Lang.
To sonnet lovers, the names of Milton and Wordsworth
stand out preeminent. Milton's sonnets are magnificent,
lofty in thought, stately and sonorous in expression. He
followed the Italian model but did not care to observe the
division between the octave and the sestet. Words-
worth's best sonnets are among his finest poems, but he
wrote many which are more or less commonplace. How-
ever, taken all in all, it is safe to say that he wrote more
good sonnets than any other English poet since Shakes-
peare. In form, he allowed himself considerable latitude,
sometimes observing the division between octave and
sestet, and sometimes not, and occasionally permitting
himself an extra rhyme in the octave.
The sonnet has been called the noblest fixed form of

English verse. Spenser and Keats tried to vary its struc-
ture, but the latter's most beautiful sonnets are regular

in form. Shelley, on the other hand, wrote few sonnets,
and nearly all are irregular. Drummond of Hawthornden
is a poet remembered for his noble sonnets.
Sonnet Sequences, or a group of more or less closely con-
nected sonnets, have been written by a number of English
poets. Sir Philip Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare, Rossetti,
and Mrs. Browning wrote famous groups of this sort, and

Wordsworth's "Sonnets Dedicated to Liberty" may be
considered another example.
A Crown of Sonnets was an Italian conceit. In this
— —
arrangement the last line of each sonnet became the first
line of the succeeding one, and the concluding line of the
last sonnet was the same as the opening line of the first.
Sonnets on the sonnet have been written by many poets;

we give several of the most famous, beginning with the
sestet from Theodore Watts-Dimton's "The Sonnet's
Voice," because it includes the theory of the sonnet:
A sonnet is a wave of melody:

From heaving waters of the impassioned soul
A billow of tidal music one and whole

Flows in the octave; then, returning free,
Its ebbing surges in the sestet roll
Back to the deeps of Life's tumultuous sea.
The Sonnet
A Sonnet is a moment's monument,
Memorial from the Soul's eternity
To one dead deathless hour. Look that it be.
Whether for lustral rite or dire portent,
Of its own arduous fulness reverent:

Carve it in ivory or in ebony.
As Day or Night may rule ; and let Time see

Its flowering crest impearl'd and orient.
A Sonnet is a coin; its face reveals

—
The soul, its converse, to what power 'tis due:
Whether for tribute to the august appeals
Of Life, or dower in Love's high retinue,
It serve : or, 'mid the dark wharf's cavernous breath,
In Charon's palm it pay the toll of Death.
—Rossetti.
the sonnet 1 73
Scorn Not the Sonnet
Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned,

Mindless of its just hours; with this key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart; the melody
Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound;
A thousand times this pipe did Tasso soxmd;
With it Camoens soothed an exile's grief;
The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf
Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned
His visionary brow; a glow-worm lamp
It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land
To struggle through dark ways; and, when a damp
Fell roimd the path of Milton, in his hand
The thing became a trumpet; whence he blew

Soul-animating strains — alas, too few.
—Wordsworth.
The Sonnet
What is a sonnet? 'Tis the pearly shell
That murmurs of the far-off murmuring sea;
A precious jewel carved most curiously:

It is a little picture painted well.
What is a sonnet? 'Tis the tear that fell
From a great poet's hidden ecstasy;
A two-edged sword, a star, a song —ah me!
Sometimes a heavy tolling funeral bell.
This was the flame that shook with Dante's breath;

The solemn organ whereon Milton played,
And the clear glass where Shakespeare's shadow falls:
"
A sea this is —beware who ventureth!

For like a fiord the narrow floor is laid
Mid-ocean deep to the sheer mountain walls.

—Richard Watson Gilder.
In making a study of this fascinating poetic type, read
Milton's ''Sonnet on His Blindness," Wordsworth's "On
Westminster Bridge," and "The World is too much with
us," Keats's "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer,
Mrs. Browning's "How do I love Thee? Let me count the
Ways," Gilder's "My love for thee doth march like armed
men," and "I count my time by times that I meet thee."
Practise sonnet writing. It is not difl&cult to gain the
needed facility of rhyme, but after you have closed with a
trite and hackneyed figure, take up at random a sonnet of
Milton or of Wordsworth, and note the dignity of its phrase
and the richness of its figures. Take, for instance, this
vigorous passage from Mrs. Browning:
As if a ship- wrecked Pagan, safe in Port,

His guardian sea-god to commemorate.
Should set a sculptured porpoise, gills a-snort,
And vibrant tail, within the temple-gate.
The sonnet writer must be willing to take pains. The

great master of the sonnet, Petrarch, wrote in a letter to a
"The courier knocks at my door but I prefer to send
friend,
him away empty rather than publish things at which I

should afterwards blush. Could I like you write verses by
the thousand I would not do so, unless the rhythm were
rigorously accurate, unless they had a certain poetical
" "
THE SONNET 1 75
charm, unless they diffused a light capable of raising and

edifying the mind;" and in a devout Latin note to one of
his sonnets he says, "I began this by the impulse of the
Lord, loth September, at the dawn of day, after my morn-
ing prayers.
In conclusion, it will be well to notice Leigh Hunt's old
rules of the sonnet, which a recent writer in The Century
said should be reprinted by every magazine in the country.
Rules of the Italian Sonnet^
"The sonnet, then, in order to be a perfect work of art,

and make no compromise with a difficulty, must in the
first place be a Legitimate Sonnet after the proper Italian

fashion; that is to say, with but two rhymes to the octave
and not more than three in the sestette.
" Secondly, it must confine itself to the one leading idea,
thought, or feeling.
"Thirdly, it must treat this one leading idea, thought, or
feeling in such a manner as to leave in the reader's mind no
sense of irrelevancy or insufficiency.
"Fourthly, it must not have a speck of obscurity.
"Fifthly, it must not have a forced rhyme.
"Sixthly, it must not have a superfluous word.
"Seventhly, it must not have a word too little; that is
to say, an omission of a word or words, for the sake of con-
venience.
" Eighthly, it must not have a word out of its place.
"Ninthly, it must have no very long word, or any other
1 Leigh Hunt, " The Book of the Sonnet.
"
that tends to lessen the number of accents, and so weaken

the verse.
"Tenthly, its rhjones must be properly varied and con-
trasted and not beat upon the same vowel, —a fault too
common with very good sonnets. It must not say, for
instance, rhyme, tide, abide, crime; or play, game, refrain,
way; but contrast i with 0, or with some other strongly
opposed vowel and treat every vowel on the same principle.
" Eleventhly, its music throughout, must be as varied as
it is suitable; more or less strong, or sweet, according to
the subject; but never weak or monotonous, unless mo-
notony itself be the effect intended.
"Twelfthly, it must increase, or, at all events, not de-
cline in interest, to its close.
"Lastly, the close must be equally impressive and un-

affected; not epigrammatic, unless where the subject
warrants it, or where point of that kind is desirable; but
simple, conclusive, and satisfactory; strength being para-
mount, where such elevation is natural, otherwise on a
level with the serenity; flowing in calmness, or grand in
the manifestation of power withheld.
1. Which of the several forms of sonnets outlined in this
chapter is in your opinion the best? Give your reasons.

2. What is the rhyme-scheme of the Italian sonnet?
This should be memorized by every student.
3. Do you consider a sonnet an especially difl&cult poem
to construct? Why?
THE SONNET 1 77
4. Name the three poets generally considered to be the

best sonneteers in English verse.
5. Write out the rhyme-schemes of at least three sonnet-

forms.
6. Map out in skeleton form several sonnets with eu-
phonious, contrasting rhymes placed at the ends of four-
teen lines otherwise blank.
7. Which line of a good sonnet would naturally be the
first to arise in the mind of the poet?
8. Rewrite any good l)aic in sonnet form.

9. Rewrite any of the sonnets given in this volume, and
change the rhyme-schemes.
10. Write upon a modern theme a sonnet in the Italian
pattern.
11. Write a sonnet in any pattern you prefer.
;
CHAPTER XX
IMITATIONS OF CLASSICAL METERS
The advantages of the more numerous versification of the

ancients.
—Leigh Hunt, What is Poetry?
Mantovano,
I salute thee,
I that loved thee since my day began,
Wielder of the stateliest measure
ever moulded by the lips of man.
—
Tennyson, To Virgil.
Professed imitations of Greek rhythm in English poetry seem
to me to have gone practically always on quite wrong lines. They
ought to have been more intensely rhythmical than the average
as a matter of fact, they think they are being Greek when they
lose lyrical rhythm altogether.
— Gilbert Murray, What English Poetry may still Learn
from Greek.
As we have already said in Chapter IV, the classical

rules of quantity were different from the accentual laws of
English verse. It is therefore not only difficult, but almost
impossible to reproduce in English the effect of Greek or
Latin meters. There are two classes of such attempts;
first, those that endeavor more or less exactly to follow the

classical rules of quantity depending on long and short
syllables; second, those that frankly employ accented
syllables in place of the long ones in the original. Those
that follow the classical rules are more difficult to read
according to English rhythm, and they are also less pleas-
ing to the average English ear.

:
IMITATIONS or CLASSICAL METERS 1 79
I. Hexameters
Dactylic Hexameter is the meter most often attempted

in imitation. It was used for heroic or epic poetry. It
consisted of six feet, the first four being either dactyls or
spondees, the fifth ordinarily a dactyl (but occasionally a
spondee, when the line was called a spondaic verse), and
the sixth and last always a spondee or a trochee.
It is almost impossible to follow this rule in English,
because there are practically no natural spondees in the
English language. (A spondee was a foot consisting of
two long, or equally accented, syllables). Therefore, there
is usually a preponderance of dactyls in English hexame-
ters, making the meter lighter and more tripping than the
original, and trochees are often substituted for spondees.
Poe, after a scathing denimciation of the hexameters

of some of his contemporaries, goes on to say, however,
that he will not admit that a truly Greek hexameter cannot
be composed in English and offers the following as an
example
/ f / / t
Do tell! when may we hope to make men of sense

It
| |
I |
lit
t
out of the I
Pundits |
/ /
Born and brought up with |

their |
snouts deep |
down
I t I
Why
ft
in the
ask? |
|
mud
Who
t
of the
ever |
|
yet
III
Frog-pond?
saw |
|
money made |
I
out
IIor a downright
IIold
of I
fat 1
II
upright
II
nutmegs
I
out of a
Jew, I
| | |
|
pine-knot? |
l8o THE ART OF VERSIFICATION
He maintains that the "proper spondee predominance

is here preserved. " But English writers are content with
one or two, what we might call, imitation spondees in a
line. They are always careful, however, to have their
fifth foot a dactyl, and their last foot a foot of two
syllables, although it is usually a trochee.
Coleridge gives us an example of this meter in the follow-
ing translation from Schiller:
f t t t I t
Strongly it |
bears us a |
long in |
swelling and [
limitless |
billows, I
Nothing be [
fore and nothing be hind but the
] | |
sky
and the ocean. |

|
And in an epistle to Wordsworth he says:
And as I live you will see my hexameters trotting before

you.
This is a galloping measure, a hop, and a trot, and a gallop.
Walter Savage Landor writes on the same subject:
Askest thou if in my youth I have mounted, as others

have mounted,
Galloping Hexameter, Pentameter cantering after?
* * *
Much as old meters delight me, 'tis only where first they
were nurtured,
In their own clime, their own speech; than pamper them
here, I would rather
Tie up my Pegasus tight to the scanty-fed rack of a sonnet.
.
IMITATIONS OF CLASSICAL METERS l8l
Longfellow used this measure in "The Children of the

Lord's Supper " and in " Evangeline. " We may divide the
opening lines of the latter poem into feet as follows:
/ / / /
This is the ]
forest pri |
meval. The ]
murmuring |
Bearded with
pines and the
|
moss and
/
|
hemlocks
in |
[
garments
III |
green, indi- |
I II
Stand
II stinct in the
like ]
Druids of
I
|
twilight,
|
II eld,
|
with |
III
voices |
sad and
Stand
II pro
like
I
phetic,
|
harpers
II
]
|
hoar, with
II |
I
beards that
II |
rest
I I
on their bosoms. |
|
Elegiac Meter which ^ is very rarely used today, consists

of a dactylic hexameter line followed by a dactylic
pentameter.
This pentameter is unusual in being composed of two
sections of two and a half feet each. There are two whole
feet, then a single long syllable, followed by the caesura,
or pause; then two more feet, followed by a long syllable.
Coleridge imitates it in this translation from Schiller:
In the hex |
I
ameter |
rises
I
the |
It!
fountain's |
silvery |
III
I I
In the pen
column
|
tameter
I
|
aye
'
' |
falling in |
II
melody back 1
'
'
\
'
The csesural pause is marked '
Tennyson gives us the following quantitative example of

elegiacs. That is, the long syllables are really long, or are
arbitrarily made so.
II
These lame |
I
hexame | ters,
II the |
II
strong-winged |
/ II
/
No—but
music of
a I
I
most bur
III
Homer?
|
|
lesque " |
barbarous
I
|
I
experi |
ment. |
To which one might respond:
When was harsher sound ever heard, ye Muses in Eng-

land?
When did a frog coarser croak upon our Helicon?
2. Lyrical Measures
Hendecasyllabics, or eleven syllable verse, is composed

of a spondee, a dactyl and three trochees.
III
O you chorus of
II
indo
I
III I
]
II |
lent re |
I
viewers, |
Irre
IIIcome
]
sponsible, |
indo |
lent re
I
|
II
viewers, |
III
Look, I I
com posed in a meter

to the ]
II Ca
test, a |
tiny ]
poem,
I
|
III
All I
|
I
|
of
I
|
tullus;
I
|
III
All in
Like the
I
quantity,
|
skater on
|
careful
|
I
ice that
|
of
|
my
II
hardly bears him,
|
motion,
|
|
Lest I I
fall una |
wares be ]
fore the |
people, |
Waking laughter |
in |
indo |
lent re |
viewers.
—Tennyson,
|
Hendecasyllabics .
IMITATIONS OF CLASSICAL METERS 1 83
Alcaics, named from the poet Alcaeus, are of several

kinds. In one, the line is made up of either a spondee
or an iambus, then a long syllable, and two dactyls;
in another, it consists of two dactyls and two trochees.
Tennyson uses the latter form in his poem on Milton,
beginning with a single syllable, then two trochees and two
dactyls. Note that the third line contains three trochees,
and that the last line reverses the order of the feet of the
first two lines, beginning with two dactyls and ending with
two trochees:
0| mighty |
mouth'd in |
ventor of |
harmonics,
/ / / /
0| skill'd to
God- I
ft
gifted
I
sing of
|
|
organ-
Time
|
/
voice of
or E
|
|
ternity,
/
England,
|
Milton a |
name to re i
soimd for |
ages; |
Whose Titan angels, Gabriel, Abdiel,
Starred from Jehovah's gorgeous armories,
Tower, as the deep-domed empyrean.
Rings to the roar of an angel onset!
Sapphics were named from the poetess Sappho. A

Sapphic line consists of eleven syllables or five feet, the
first a trochee, the second a spondee, the third a dactyl,

and the fourth and fifth trochees. Three of these lines
are followed by a line of five syllables consisting of a

dactyl and a spondee.
/ I t t t t
Saw the |
white im [
placable |
Aphro |
dite, |
Saw the hair un bound and the feet un sandalled

Shine as
t
|
|
fire
lit on
of |
|
sunset |
t
western
|
|
t
waters;
|
|
t It |
Saw the re |
luctant |
/ t t t § t
Feet, the |
straining |
plumes of the |
doves that [
drew
her I
Looking
Back
/
to I
|
always
Lesbos,
tit |
|
looking with
back to the |
|
necks re
hills
t
where
]
verted,
|
I
under
|
Shone Mity |
lene;
Heard the flying feet of the Loves behind her
Make a sudden thunder upon the waters.
As the thunder flung from the strong unclosing
Wings of a great wind.
So the goddess fled from her place, with awful
Sound of feet and thunder of wings around her:
While behind a clamor of singing women
Severed the twilight.

— Swinburne.
It is apparent that the beauty of this meter is due to the
central dactyl, or foot of three syllables. In "The Friend
of Humanity and The Knife-Grinder, " which is a bur-
lesque of this measure, a dactyl is substituted for the first
trochee.
—
IMITATIONS OF CLASSICAL METERS 185
Needy knife-grinder! whither are you going?

Rough is the road, your wheel is out of order,
Bleak blows the blast, —^your hat has got a hole in't.
So have your breeches!

—Canning and Frere.
Choriamhic. A choriambus is a foot consisting of a

trochee combined with and preceding an iambus. It is
therefore a foot of four syllables, the first long, the second

and third short, and the fourth long. A choriambic line
consists of a spondee, three choriambuses, and an iambus,
It
t
II
Love, what
III
t
lovely,
|
f
ailed
we thought,
thee to leave
II
|
with love?
I
]
life
|
that was
I
I
made |
What sweet |
visions of sleep |
lured thee away, |
/ f I
down from the light |

above?
What strange faces of dreams, voices that called, hands
that were raised to wave.
Lured or led thee, alas, out of the sun, down to the sunless
grave?
— Swinburne.
Galliamhic. A galliambic line is composed of iambic

feet, one of which is catalectic, or drops the final syllable;
the next to the last foot is an anapaest, or two short syllables

followed by a long one.
— '
I t t t t
So I
in ire I
she spake |
adjust |
ing " dis |
uni |
tedly then |
her yoke. |
I t t I
At I
his own |
rebuke |
the li |
on " doth |
his heart ]
to a f u ry
I
spur,
With a step, a roar, a bursting, unarrested of any brake.

—Robinson Ellis, Translation oj the Attis.
Note. The student should not only recognize but

understand the functions of all metrical feet found in
English verse.
1. Mark the accents of the unmarked lines quoted in

this chapter.
2. Copy the following table of accented and unaccented

syllables, and keep it by you until you have mastered it.
Iambus: '
Spondee: —— '
Trochee: — '
Amphibrach:
Anapaest: '
Amphimacer: — '
'
Dactyl: — '
Write it from memory.

3. Write seven rhythmic lines, the first line trochaic, the
second line iambic, etc., in illustration of all the metrical
feet noted in this table. Of course, these are not to be parts
of one stanza.
4. Having become familiar with these technicalities of

verse, would you consider it essential to bear them con-
tinually in mind during the composition of poetry?
IMITATIONS OF CLASSICAL METERS 1 87
5. Revise one of your former poetic efforts and hand in

the revised Ms.
6. Choosing the three most attractive classical forms,
write a stanza in each. In imitating a set form it is always

good to draft a plan of the meter and follow it carefully.
— —
CHAPTER XXI
FRENCH FORMS
The charm of these strictly written verses is undoubtedly in-
creasedby some knowledge of their technical rules. Every
quality that poetry demands, whether clearness of thought, ele-
gance of expression, harmonious sound, or faultless rhythm, is
needed as much in these shapes as in unfettered verse. Gleeson
White, Introduction to Ballades and Rondeaus.
That highten balades, roundels, virelaies. Chaucer, The
Legend of Good Women.
The so-called French forms of artificial verse include

many varieties. The most common of these are the
Ballade, the Rondeau, the Rondel, the Villanelle, and the
Triolet. There are other less usual forms of which the
Kyrielle is the simplest, and the Pantoum, the Chant
Royal, and the Sestina, the most complicated and
difl&cult.
All these meters share certain characteristics: an arbi-
trary rhyme-scheme, a limited number of rhymes, and

the repetition of a refrain, or of certain lines, or of terminal
words. They are excellent practice for the verse-writer,
for their frequent use gives ease and flexibility, and should
lead to lightness and grace. Perhaps the most attractive
of them all is the Ballade.
The Ballade must not be confused with the ballad, which
was a simple form of folk-poetry. The Ballade, on the
contrary, although it is supposed to have originated in
FRENCH FORMS 1 89
dance and song, is a most sophisticated and artificial meter,

cultivated in old times by court poets, and invariably
dedicated to a prince or a patron.
In its most usual form it consists of three eight-line
stanzas, with an envoy, or dedication, of four lines at the
close. It is sometimes written in three ten-line stanzas

with an envoy of five lines, and even nine-line and eleven-
line ballades are not unknown. The eight-line stanza,
however, is the typical one, and the eight-syllable line the
most usual. Three rhymes only are allowed.

The rhyme-scheme of the stanza is a, b, a, b, b, c, b, c,
and of the envoy, b, c, b, c.
The same terminal rhyming word may not be used

twice, except of course in the refrain. The refrain forms
the last line of each stanza and the last line of the envoy.
The sense of each stanza must be continuous, and the re-
frain should complete the sense naturally and without
awkwardness. The refrain should recur each time without
any change of word, though a change of emphasis is allow-

able and even desirable.
The refrain is the corner-stone of a ballade, and as the

whole structure rests thereupon, it should be chosen first.
The old French poets insisted that the length of the refrain
should govern not only the length of the line but also the
number of lines in the stanza —that is, that a ten-syllable
refrain necessitated a ten-line stanza, and an eight-syllable
refrain an eight-line stanza. This latter rule is not ob-

served in modern English practice; so accomplished a
balladist as Mr. Andrew Lang having written ballades
with lines of four, seven, eight, nine, and even eleven
IQO THE ART OF VERSIFICATION
syllables, yet all with the eight-line stanza. The ten-

syllable ballade, however, is still usually written with ten
lines.
The difficulty of rendering the Ballade in English is
caused by the number of rhyming words needed: fourteen

of one kind, six of another, and five of another. Ballades
with two rhymes are permissible, but the difficulty is then,
of course, increased: fourteen rhymes of one kind must be

found and eleven of the other.
The envoy (sometimes written envoi), or dedication, is
the address to the poet's sovereign, or patron, and is the

summing up and conclusion of the whole matter, often
pointing the moral and adorning the tale.
One of Franfois Villon's ballades has always been a

favorite with translators. Andrew Lang's version, which
we give, is one of the most pleasing.
Ballade of Dead Ladies
(After Villon)
Nay, me now in what strange air

tell
The Roman Flora dwells to-day.

Where Archippiada hides, and where
Beautiful Thais has passed away?
Whence answers Echo, afield, astray.
By mere or stream, —around, below?

Lovelier she than a woman of clay;
Nay, but where is the last year's snow?
—
FRENCH FORMS I9I
Where is wise Heloise, that care

Brought on Abeilard, and dismay?
All for her love he found a snare
A maimed poor monk in orders grey;
And Where's the Queen who willed to slay
Buridan, that in a sack must go
Afloat down Seine, —a perilous way
Where is that White Queen, a lily rare

With her sweet song, the Siren's lay?
Where's Bertha Broad-foot, Beatrice fair?
Alys and Ermengarde, where are they?

Good Joan, whom English did betray
In Rouen town, and burned her? No,
Maiden and Queen, no man may say;
ENVOY
Prince, all this week thou need'st not pray.

Nor yet this year the thing to know,
One burden answers, ever and aye,
"Nay, but where is the last year's snow?"
Ballade of Ten Lines. In this form, four rhymes are

permitted. The envoy should contain five lines, half as
many as the stanza. The rhyme order is a, b, a, b, b, c,
c, d, c, d, in the stanza,and in the envoy, c, c, d, c, d.
To show the structure, we quote the first stanza and the

envoy of Andrew Lang's translation of "The Ballade of
! :
the Voyage to Cythera," after Theodore de Banville.

This ballade follows the rule of ten syllables, ten lines.
I know Cythera long is desolate;

I know the winds have stripp'd the gardens green,
Alas,my friend! Beneath the fierce sun's weight
A barren reef lies where Love's flowers have been,
Nor ever lover on that coast is seen
So be it, but we seek a fabled shore,
To lull our vague desires with mystic lore.
To wander where Love's labyrinths beguile;
There let us land, there dream forevermore:
"It may be we shall touch the happy isle."
ENVOY
Sad eyes! The blue sea laughs, as heretofore.
Oh! singing birds your happy music pour!
Ah, poets, leave the sordid earth awhile;
Flit to these ancient gods we still adore
"It may be we shall touch the happy isle!"
The Double Ballade consists of six stanzas of eight or ten
lines, using respectively three or four rhymes, necessitating,

of course, a double number of rhyming words. It is some-
times written without an envoy.
The Ballade d, Double Refrain uses two refrains, one of

which occurs as the fourth line of each stanza and as the
second line of the envoy, and the other in the ordinary
place, as the last line of each stanza and the last line of the
envoy. The subjects of the two refrains should be con-

— — ——
!
FRENCH FORMS 1 93
trasted. The following, by Austin Dobson, is an

excellent example:
The Ballade of Prose and Rhyme

(Ballade a Double Refrain)
When the days are heavy with mire and rut,

In November fogs, in December snows.
When the North wind howls, and the doors are shut,
There is place and enough for the pains of prose,
But whenever a scent from the whitethorn blows,
And the jasmine stars at the casement climb
And a Rosalind face at the lattice shows.
Then hey! — for the ripple of laughing rhyme!
When the brain gets dry as an empty nut,

When the reason stands on its squarest toes.
When the mind (like a beard) has a " formal cut, "
There is place and enough for the pains of prose;
But whenever the May-blood stirs and glows.

And the young year draws to the "golden prime,"
And Sir Romeo sticks in his ear a rose,
Then hey !
— for the ripple of laughing rhyme
In a theme where the thoughts have a pedant-strut,

In a changing quarrel of "Ayes" and "Noes,"
In a starched procession of "If" and "But,"
There is place and enough for the pains of prose;
But whenever a soft glance softer grows

And the light hours dance to the trysting-time,
And the secret is told " that no one knows, "
Then hey! — for the ripple of laughing rhyme!
—
ENVOY
In the work-a-day world, — for its needs and woes,

There is place and enough for the pains of prose,
But whenever the May bells clash and chime

—
Then hey! for the ripple of laughing rhyme!
The Rondeau is another delightful form which in the

hands of a master yields imexpected beauties. Indeed it
may be said to rank next to the sonnet as a short, formal

poem. Like the ballade, it is built upon the refrain, which
also forms in the rondeau the first half of the first line, or,
if a refrain of one word only is used, the first word of the
first line; therefore as one author tells us:
Upon a good beginning must be based

A good rondeau.
Voiture, in France, was the chief master of rondeau-
writing and since his day the so-called Rondeau of Voiture

has been its most popular form. It consists of thirteen
lines with two rhymes, and an unrhymed refrain which

also forms the opening word or words of the first line. The
poem is divided into three stanzas. The rhyme-order is
a, a, h, b, a — a, a, b, and refrain a, a, b, b, a and refrain.

The refrain is not counted in the lines of the stanza. It
must recur without change of word, but is sometimes given

a changed meaning with happy effect. Rondeaus are
usually written in eight-syllable lines; however, the fol-
lowing fine example by W. E. Henley, has ten syllables.

—
french forms 1 95
What is to Come
(Rondeau)
What is to come we know not. But we know
That what has been was good was good to show,—
Better to hide, and best of all to bear,
We are the masters of the days that were:
We have lived, we have loved, we have suffered—even so.
Shall we not take the ebb who had the flow?

Life was our friend. Now, if it be our foe
Dear, though it break and spoil us! —need we care
What is to come?
Let the great winds their worst and wildest blow,
Or the gold weather round us mellow slow;
We have fulfilled ourselves, and we can dare
And we can conquer, though we may not share
Li the rich quiet of the afterglow
What is to come.
The Rondeau of Villon is a shorter form. It consists of
ten lines with two rhymes and an unrhymed refrain which

is used twice —hence twelve lines in all. The
rhyme scheme is a, h, b, a,
— a, b, and refrain, a, b, b, a, and
refrain.
In Vain Today
(Rondeau)
In vain today I scrape and blot:
The nimble words, the phrases neat.
Decline to mingle and to meet.
My skill is all forgone, forgot.
— "
He will not canter, walk, or trot,

My Pegasus; I spur, I beat
In vain to-day.
And yet 'twere sure the saddest lot

That I should fail to leave complete
One poor —the rhyme suggests "conceit!"
Alas! 'tis all too clear I'm not
In vein to-day.
—Austin Dobson.
The Roundel is a variation of the rondeau, invented by

Swinburne and used by him with great freedom and dex-
terity. Its charm consists in its rhyming refrain. The
rhyme-order is a, b, a, refrain, b, a, b, — a, b, a, refrain.
Swinburne has written roimdels with every imaginable

rhythm and with lines varying from four syllables to
sixteen. We give the envoi to his " Century of Roundels :
Envoi
(Roundel)
Fly, white butterflies out to sea,

Frail pale wings for the winds to try,
Small white wings that we scarce can see
Fly.
Here and there may a chance caught eye

Note in a score of you, twain or three
Brighter or darker of tinge or dye.

FRENCH FORMS I97
Some fly light as a laugh of glee,

Some fly soft as a low long sigh,
All to the haven where each would be
Fly.
The Rondel. The word rondel is merely the old spelling

of the French word rondeau, but it has come to mean a
slightly different form of verse. There are two types of
modern rondels. One consists of fourteen lines with two
rhymes, usually in the order a, b, b, a, — a, b, a, b, — a, b, b,
a, a, b, or a, b, a, b, — b, a, a, b, — a, b, a, b, a, b. The two
first lines are repeated as the seventh and eighth, and
again as the thirteenth and fourteenth lines. The effect
is, of course, slightly monotonous.

The other and more graceful form drops the fourteenth
line, so that although the first line of the poem is repeated
three times, the second line occurs only twice, giving more
variety and lightness to the verse. We give a specimen of
the thirteen-line rondel:
The Ways of Death

(Rondel)
The ways of Death are soothing and serene.

And all the words of Death are grave and sweet.
From camp and church, the fireside and the street.
She signs to come, and strife and song have been.
A summer night descending cool and green

And dark, on daytime's dust and stress and heat.
The ways of death are soothing and serene.
And all the words of Death are grave and sweet.

: —
O glad and sorrowful, with triumphant mien

And hopeful faces look upon and greet
This last of all your lover's, and to meet
. Her kiss, the Comforter's, your spirit lean.
The ways of Death are soothing and serene.
—W. E. Henley.
The Rondelet is a diminutive form which is not often
used. It consists of seven lines including the refrain, with
two rhymes, in the order a, b, a, a, b, b, a.
Rondelet
"Which way he went?"
I —
know not how should I go spy
Which way he went?
I only know him gone. "Relent?"
—
He never will unless I die!
And then, what will it signify
Which way he went?
—May Probyn.
The Rondeau Redouble has little in common with the
rondeau but the name. It consists of six four-line stanzas
rhymed alternately on two rhymes, and its intricacy is
caused by the use in turn of the f oiir lines of the first stanza
as the terminal lines of the four succeeding stanzas. The

one feature which it shares with the rondeau, (other than
its use of two rhymes) is the re-appearance of the first
half of the first line as a short concluding line at the end of

the poem. This may rhyme or not as the author pleases.
An example will best illustrate the structure
french forms 1 99
Rondeau Redouble
My day and night are in my lady's hand;

I have no other sunrise than her sight;
For me her favor glorifies the land;

Her anger darkens all the cheerful light.
Her face is fairer than the hawthorn white,

When all a-flower in May the hedgerows stand;
While she is kind, I know of no afifright.
My day and night are in my lady's hand.

All heaven in her glorious eyes is spanned;
Her smile is softer than the summer's night,
Gladder than daybreak on the Faery strand;
I have no other sunrise than her sight.
Her silver speech is like the singing flight

Of nmnels rippling o'er the jewelled sand;
Her kiss a dream of delicate delight;

For me her favor glorifies the land.
What if the Winter chase the Summer bland!

The gold sun in her hair burns ever bright,
If she be sad, straightway all joy is banned;
Her anger darkens all the cheerful light.
Come weal or woe, I am my lady's knight

And in her service every ill withstand;
Love is my Lord in all the world's despite
And holdeth in the hollow of his hand
My day and night.
—John Payne.
The Villanelle uses two rhymes and consists of six

stanzas, five of three lines each, and the last one of four
lines. It belongs to the type of rondel and rondeau re-
double in that it gains its efifect by the repetition of lines.

The first and last lines of the first stanza re-appear
alternately as the last lines of the second, third, fourth,
and fifth stanzas, and both together form the two con-
cluding lines of the last stanza. The tercets (groups of
three lines) are rhymed a, h, a, and the concluding quatrain

a, h, a, a.
The villanelle was originally supposed to be a shepherd's
song and was devoted almost exclusively to pastoral sub-

jects. The following example shows that it can be used
for a more dignified theme:
Villanelle
The silent stars burn in the sky,
Vega, Caph and white Altair,

Unknowing that we live and die.
Aldebaran, the Bull's fierce eye,
Arcturus' sullen, fatal flare.
The silent stars burn in the sky.
Alphard, lone heart of fire on high.

Gleams from out the Hydra's lair.
They watch our tiny Earth spin by.

Incurious that we strive and dare.
The silent stars burn in the sky.
FRENCH FORMS 20I
Andromeda, with Perseus nigh,

Forgets that haunted cliff's despair,
Our pain, our passion they deny,

Nor Love that outlives Death, their share.
The sUent stars burn in the sky.
—
Samuel Scoville, Jr.
The Triolet consists of eight lines with two rhymes. The

first line is used again as the fourth and seventh line. The
second line is repeated as the eighth line and conclusion of
the poem. It is desirable to vary the significance of the
recurrent lines if possible.
There are hundreds of English triolets, but most of them

are content to obey the rule of repetition and make no
attempt to gain the more subtle grace of a varied use of the
same line.
Triolet
When first we met, we did not guess

That Love would prove so hard a master;
Of more than common friendliness
When first we met we did not guess.

Who could foretell the sore distress,
This irretrievable disaster,
When first we met? we — did not guess
That Love would prove so hard a master.
—Robert Bridges.
;
The Kyrielle is so simple in construction that it hardly

seems in place among its more elaborate relatives. It con-
sists merely of any number of four-line stanzas, rhymed in

couplets, the last line of each stanza being the same. Origi-
nallyit was always written in eight-syllable lines. The
name kyrielle is a shortened form of Kyrie Eleison, (O Lord
have mercy!) one of the responses of the Roman Liturgy.
These responses were usually sung, the musical setting to
which they were simg was called Kyrielle, and the name
was finally applied to another set of words with a refrain.
The form is preserved in a number of Anglican hymns. The
following example has seven syllables.
The Pavilion
(Kyrielle)
In the tents the lamps were bright.

Out beyond the summer night
Thrilled and quivered Hke a star:
We beneath were left so far.
From the depths of blue profound

Never any sight or sound
Came our loneliness to mar:
But against the summer sky

Only you stood out and I
From all other things that are

—A. Mary F. Robinson.
FRENCH FORMS 203
The Virelai and Virelai Nouveau have never become

popular in English, perhaps because of their monotony.
In the virelai the number of stanzas is not fixed nor is the
number of lines in a stanza. The rhyme sequence is a, a,
&, —a, a, b,
— a, a, b, in multiples of three for the first
stanza, b, b, c,
— b, b, c,
— b, b, c, in the second, c, c,
d, —c, c, d, — c, c, d, in the third and so on for as long as
the poet's invention holds out. We give two stanzas to

show the structure.
Spring Sadness
(Virelai)
As I sat sorrowing.
Love came and bade me sing
A joyous song and meet.
For see (said he) each thing
Is merry for the spring,
And every bird doth greet

The break of blossoming,
That all the woodlands ring

Unto the young hours' feet.
Wherefore put off defeat

And rouse thee to repeat
The chimes of merles that go,
With flutings shrill and sweet,
In every green retreat.
The tune of streams that flow
And mark the fair hours' beat

; — !
With nmning ripples fleet
And breezes soft and low.

* * *
—John Payne.
The Virelai Nouveau has but two rhymes. It begins
with a couplet. The order of the rhyme and the length of

the stanzas are not fixed, but the two lines of the opening
couplet, used alternately, form the refrain to the other
stanzas, and both together close the last stanza.
Virelai Nouveau
Good-bye to the Town ! good-bye
Hurrah! for the sea and the sky!
In the street the flower-girls cry;
In the street the water carts ply:
And a fluter, with features awry.
Plays fitfully, "Scots wha hae"
And the throat of that fluter is dry;
Good-bye to the Town! good-bye!
And over the roof-tops nigh

Comes a waft like a dream of the May;
And a lady-bird lit on my tie
And a cockchafer came with the tray;
And a butterfly (no one knows why)
Mistook my Aunt's cap for a spray;
And "next door" and "over the way"

The neighbors take wing and fly:
******
Hurrah for the sea
******
and the sky.
FRENCH FORMS 20$
So Phillis, the fawn-footed, hie

For a hansom. Ere close of the day
Between us a "world" must lie;
Good-bye to the Town! good-bye!

Hurrah! for the sea and the sky,
—Austin Dobson.
The Chant Royal was the most complicated measure of
northern France as the sestina was of southern. Mr. Gosse

calls it "the final tour-de-force, the ne plus ultra of legiti-
mate difiiculty in the construction of a poem;" but it is
neither so intricate nor so difl&cult as the sestina. It is an

enlarged and elaborated form of ballade and was used for
stately and heroic subjects. It contains five stanzas of
eleven lines each and an envoy of five lines beginning with
an invocation like the envoys of ballades.
Five rhymes are employed in the order a, b, a, b, c, c
d, d, e, d, e, with an envoy of d, d, e, d, e. The rhyme-

scheme of all the stanzas is identical and no rhyming word
may be used a second time. The last line of each stanza
and of the envoy is formed by the refrain.
Chant Royal
To F. H. W.
The royal songs that men have simg abide.
Look down the cloudy vista of the years,
And where huge wars dim phantom kings divide,
The hostage was the singer, so appears
At last a gilded helm from out the gloom
And Agamemnon rises, and a plume
;
2o6 THE ART OF VERSIFICATION
Comes forth to meet him confident, elate,
And Hector strides to meet relentless fate.

What forges for us all the arms they bore?
What shows us all their glory and their state?
The royal songs that men have sung of yore.
The shouts of war, and battle din subside;

The clang of harness and the clash of spears;
And now arise to comfort and to guide,
The songs men hear with thankfulness and tears;
What kings are these, with harp in hand, for whom

The noblest bards of all the earth make room?
Who sing the King of kings, the Potentate
Of glory, and the bridegroom and his mate.
O song of songs The nations evermore

!
With centuries of worship consecrate
No longer from the palaces of pride
The singer comes; but, followed by the sneers
Of scornful men, he wanders far and wide.

An exile, bearing grief, and taunts, and jeers.
And weight of his own soul which is his doom.
Afar from Florence even in the tomb
Yet no man dares to call him desolate,
Who gained the eternal city by the gate

Of dolor and the Acheron tian shore;
We hail him master when we celebrate

:
FRENCH FORMS 207
Now Cometh one by deepest woes untried,

With divers merry tales that whoso hears,
Shall ever see those joctmd pilgrims ride,
And better love his feUow, who endears
To us plain himiankind, knight, priest or groom;
And after him two lofty shadows loom
For England's praise, one mighty to create
Her kings again and one to vindicate
God's ways and hell and heaven to explore
Their names shall ring where'er reverberate
And in a later day shall it betide
That silence shall await our wistful ears?
Nay bright and beautiful behold them glide,
Shelley and Keats, to mingle with their peers;

Where Fame's great bells with solemn anthem boom,
They shall be counted worthy, nor presume,
Those two hearts yoimg and high and passionate,
With Wordsworth and that later Laureate
Who heard with steady soul the steersman's oar,
And he, dispraised, who won the crowns that_^wait
ENVOY
Friend, in whose verse the spirit and perfume

Of noble thoughts and fair perfection bloom,
In loving thrall to beauty dedicate,
Be of good cheer and let thy heart dilate
" :
With joy, nor fear oblivion's fatal door
When thine shall be, with all the good and great,
—M. E. R.
The Sestina originated in Provence at the end of the
thirteenth century, and was one of the intricate measures
in which the Troubadours delighted.
It was invented by that Arnaut Daniel whom Dante
praises in the " Purgatorio, " and whom Petrarch calls the
"great master of love."
The sestina is the most complicated and arbitrary of all
the artificial meters, being a mathematical puzzle as well
as a poem. As its name implies, it is governed by the

number six. It consists of six stanzas of six lines each and
a final stanza of three lines. The lines are of equal length.
The same six terminal words are used in each stanza but in
a different sequence which is absolutely prescribed by rule.
The same six words are repeated in the middle of the line
and as the terminals of the concluding three-line stanza.
Sestinas were imrhymed. Swinburne has written rhymed

sestinas, but even in his hands the rhyme adds to the
monotony and rather detracts from the charm. This old
measure is put to successful modern use in Mr. Kipling's
"Sestina of the Tramp Royal.
The following is the order of the terminals
FRENCH FORMS 209
1 stanza 123456
2 " 615243
"
3 364125
4
*'
532614
"
5 451362
"
6 246531
In the concluding three-line stanza they run 2, 5, — 4, 3,
-6, I.
Sestina
In fair Provence, the land of lute and rose,

Arnaut, great master of the lore of love,
First wrought sestines to win his lady's heart,
For she was deaf when simpler staves he sang,

And for her sake he broke the bonds of rhyme.
And in this subtler measure hid his woe.
"Harsh be my lines, " cried Arnaut, "harsh the woe.

My lady, that enthroned and cruel rose,
Inflicts on him that made her live in rhyme!"
But through the meter spoke the voice of Love,
And like a wildwood nightingale he sang

Who thought in crabbed lays to ease his heart.
It is not told if her untoward heart

Was melted by her poet's lyric woe,
Or if in vain so amorously he sang.
Perchance through crowd of dark conceits he rose
To nobler heights of philosophic love.
And crowned his later years with sterner rhyme.
—— !
2IO THE ART OF VERSIFICATION
This thing alone we know, the triple rhyme

Of him who bared his vast and passionate heart
To all the crossing flames of hate and love,
Wears in the midst of all its storm and woe
As some loud mom of March may bear a rose

The impress of a song that Arnaut sang,
" Smith of his mother- tongue, " the Frenchman sang

Of Lancelot and of Galahad, the rhyme
That beat so bloodlike at its core of rose,
It stirred the sweet Francesca's gentle heart
To take that kiss that brought her so much woe,

And sealed in fire her martyrdom of love.
And Dante, full of her immortal love,

Stayed his drear song, and softly, fondly sang
As though his voice broke with that weight of woe;
And to this day we think of Arnaut's rhyme,
Whenever pity at the laboring heart
On fair Francesca's memory drops the rose.
Ah ! sovereign Love, forgive this weaker rhyme

The men of old who sang were great at heart.
Yet have we too known woe, and worn thy rose.
— Edmund Gosse.
The Pantoum originated in Malaysia, where it is said to
have been improvised to the beating of a tom-tom. By
reason of its adoption in France by Victor Hugo and other
poets, it is included under French forms. It is supposed to
be particularly suited to the rendering of a monotonous
FRENCH FORMS 211
subject. It consists of any number of four-line stanzas,
the second and fourth Hne of each stanza being repeated

as the first and third of the following stanza, and the second
and fourth line of the last stanza being formed from the
third and first of the first stanza.
MONOLOGUE D'OUTRE TOMBE
(Pantoum)
Morning and noon and night.
Here I lie in the ground.
No faintest glimmer of light,

No lightest whisper of sound.
Here I lie in the ground.
The worms glide out and in.
No lightest whisper of sound.
After a lifelong din.

* * *
The worms are wriggling away.

They are what I have been;
They will fertilize my clay;
The grass will grow more green.
They are what I have been,

I shall change, but what of^that?
The grass will grow more green
The parson's sheep grow fat.
I shall change, but what of that?

All flesh is grass, one says.
The parson's sheep grow fat,
The parson grows in grace.
All flesh is grass, one says;

Grass becomes flesh, one knows;
The parson grows in grace;
I am the grace he grows.
Grass becomes flesh, one knows.

He grows like a bull of Bashan,
I am the grace he grows,
I startle his congregation.
He grows like a bull of Bashan,

One day he'll be Bishop or Dean,
I startle his congregation;
One day I shall preach to the Queen.
One day he'll be Bishop or Dean,

One of those science-haters;
One day I shall preach to the Queen,
To think of my going in gaiters!
One of those science-haters,

Blind as a mole or bat;
To think of my going in gaiters,
And wearing a shovel hat!
FRENCH FORMS 213
Blind as a mole or bat,

No faintest glimmer of light,
And wearing a shovel hat.

Morning and noon and night.
— ^^Love in Idleness.''^
1. Write a paragraph on the comparative values of

French, English and Classical meters.
2. Are involved meters well fitted for the expression of
emotional thought, or should we regard them rather as

intellectual exercises?
3. Which form discussed in the chapter seems to you

best fitted for the conveyance of dignified thought?
4. What is the meaning of the word tercet?
5. What constitutes an envoy to a poem?

6. Define (o) a Ballade; {h) a Rondeau.
7. Write a Villanelle upon a pastoral theme of your own
selection.
8. Which "French form" suits your own fancy best?

9. Discuss briefly what types of themes would be best
suited to any three French forms.
10. Choosing your own form from among the models in
poem and
this chapter, write the introductory stanzas of a
give an idea of how you would handle the body of the poem
and its conclusion.
11. If time affords, complete the poem.
12. Transfer the same theme to some other French form,
if practicable.
CHAPTER XXII
SONG-WRITING
I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;

For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.
I breathed a song into the air,

knew not where;
It fell to earth, I
For who has sight so keen and strong.
That it can follow the flight of song?
Long, long afterward, in an oak

I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.
—H. W. Longfellow, The Arrow and the Song.
The poetic song, being definitely composed for musical
accompaniment, is the true lyric, and is often so named

today. But, especially in the librettos of comic operas and
musical comedies, the term lyric is gratuitously applied to
light verse, which may adopt such tones as sentiment,
humor, satire, vers de societe, nonsense, parody, burlesque
and whimsicality.
A good lyric is not necessarily a good song. Song-
writing demands some knowledge of, or at least an ear for
music, although other kinds of lyric poetry do not. Shelley,
the supreme lyrist, knew nothing of music, and some of his
lyrics are almost unsingable. The best song- writers usually
SONG- WRITING 215
sang their own songs. Burns, the most spontaneous poet of

Great Britain, found little use for the names of trochee,
dactyl, amphimacer, and the like, and had his fling at the
poets who
Think to climb Parnassus
By dint of Greek.
He fitted his lines to well-known tunes and sang them

himself. So also did Tom Moore.
In the days of Elizabeth and after the Restoration, in
the time of Charles II, well nigh every English gentleman
could write a song, both words and music, and play and
sing it as well. To the general cultivation of "chamber-
music" in those reigns, we owe a rich store of song-lyrics,
to coin a seemingly redundant expression. In later times?

Browning was something of a musician, and our own
Sidney Lanier tried to fit the rules of music to the art of
poetry, not always with perfect success, but the songs
of Browning and of Lanier are not particularly singable.
The reason is that the writers had not in mind the require-
ments of the singing voice, and too often grouped words
which read well, but did not sing well.
General Hints
In singing, one must open one's mouth, therefore the

more vowel sounds in a song the better, the more open
vowel sounds (a and o) the better still, and the more ter-
minal vowel sounds, by all odds still the better because

if a note has to be prolonged the meaning of the word need
not then be lost. This requirement, besides those of sim-
:
2l6 THE ART OF VERSIFICATION
plicity, sentiment, and rhythm, is fundamental to all good

song making.
Crowded consonants and words ending in the labials
p, b and m, and the fricative/, all of which close the lips,
should be absolutely avoided.
A short line is preferable to a long one.
A taking rhythm —a rhythm with a lilt —should be
chosen.
In literary form, make every word count, yet do not
compress your language so as to obscure the meaning.
The refrain may often be used with good effect.
The best method of all is to choose an air and fit your
words to it, for if the song does not sing itself, no one will
sing it.
Observe the simplicity, clearness, compact form,

rhythm, sentiment, and charm of the following songs
which have long been favorites. Observe, too, those of you
who know familiar settings for these songs, how even more
smoothly they sing than they read.
O, My Luve's Like a Red, Red Rose
O, my luve's like a red, red rose

That's newly sprung in June:
O, my luve's like the melodic
That's sweetly played in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,

So deep in luve am I
And I will luve thee still, my dear.

Till a' the seas gang dry.
! ! 7
SONG- WRITING 21
Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,

And rocks melt wi' the sun:
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands of life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only Luve

And fare thee weel awhile
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho' it were ten thousand mile.
—Robert Burns.
Kathleen Mavourneen
Kathleen Mavourneen! the gray dawn is breaking.
The horn of the hunter is heard on the hill;
The lark from her light wing the bright dew is shaking-
Kathleen Mavourneen! what, slumbering still?
Oh, hast thou forgotten how soon we must sever?

Oh! hast thou forgotten this day we must part?
Itmay be for years, and it may be forever!
why art thou silent, thou voice of my heart?
Oh,
Oh, why art thou silent, Kathleen Mavourneen?
Kathleen Mavourneen, awake from thy slumbers!

The blue mountains glow in the sun's golden light;
Ah, where is the spell that once hung onmy numbers?

Arise in thy beauty, thou star of my night!
!! ! !
2l8 THE ART OF VERSIFICATION
Mavoumeen, Mavourneen, my sad tears are falling,
To think that from Erin and thee I must part!

It may be for years, and it may be forever!
Then why art thou silent, thou voice of my heart?
Then why art thou silent, Kathleen Mavourneen?
—
Louisa Macartney Crawford.
Serenade
(From "The Spanish Student")
Stars of the summer night!

Far in yon azure deeps,
Hide, hide your golden light!
She sleeps!
My lady sleeps
Sleeps
Moon of the summer night!

Far down yon western steeps,
Sink, sink in silver light!

She sleeps!
My lady sleeps!
Sleeps!
Wind of the summer night!

Where yonder woodbine creeps,
Fold, fold thy pinions light
She sleeps!
My lady sleeps!
Sleeps
!
SONG- WRITING 219
Dreams of the summer night!

Tell her, her lover keeps
Watch, while in slumbers light
She sleeps!
My lady sleeps
Sleeps!
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
1. Is the expression song-lyric really redundant?

2. What constitutes the refrain of a song? Give an
example.
3. (a) Distinguish between refrain and chorus, (b) Is
the word chorus ever improperly used?

4. Which vowel sound is best fitted for the last position
in a line, particularlywhen the tune is likely to provide a
sustained note?
5. What other vowel sounds are desirable there?
6. What class of sounds should be avoided at the ends
of lines?
7. Is alliteration desirable in the lines of a song? Give
reasons supporting your answer.
8. As liberal awards await writers of successful "popu-
lar" songs, it is well to study the words of such songs, and
to determine the qualities in which they frequently re-
semble one another; as, for instance, in a chorus composed
largely of dactyls appropriate to waltz music. Therefore
write an analysis of a "song hit" of the day.
9. Write a rollicking song upon some stirring, out-of-
doors theme.
10. Give several original themes for songs.
11. What is a hymn?

12. Write a hymn of patriotism. The suggestion has
been hazarded that America's greatest national hynm has
yet to be written.
13. Do you know of any so-called hymns which are
merely versified sentiment, without any direct appeal to
the Deity?
14. Examine a standard hymn-book and make a care-
ful analysis of (a) the poetry of the best hymns, like
"Lead, Kindly Light;" (b) the adaptation of meters to
words, or vice versa; (c) what meters are best suited to
solemn and majestic hymns, and what are best fitted to
livelier sentiments.
15. Make a scrap-book collection of as many hymn
meters as you can gather, affixing to each an analysis of
the accents, or beats of the musical rhythm.
CHAPTER XXIII
LIGHT VERSE
A comic subject loves an humble verse.

—Horace, Ars Poetica.
They tell me new methods now govern the Muses,

The modes of expression have changed with the times;
That low is the rank of the poet who uses
The old-fashioned verse with intentional rhymes.
And quite out of date is rhythmical metre;
The critics declare it an insult to art.
But oh! the sweet swing of it, oh! the clear ring of it,
Oh! the great pulse of it, right from the heart.
Art or no art.
I sat by the side of that old poet, Ocean,

And counted the billows that broke on the rocks;
The tide lilted in with a rhythmical motion;
The sea-gulls dipped downward in time-keeping flocks.
Iwatched while a giant wave gathered its forces.
And then on the gray granite precipice burst;
And I knew as I counted, while other waves mounted,
I knew the tenth billow would rhyme with the first.
Below in the village a church-bell was chiming.

And back in the woodland a little bird sang;
And, doubt it who will, yet those two sounds were rhyming,
As out o'er the hill-tops they echoed and rang.
The Winds and the Trees fell to talking together;
And nothing they said was didactic or terse;
But everything spoken was told in unbroken
And beautiful rhyming and rhythmical verse.
So rhythm I hail it, though critics assail it,
And
hold melting rhymes as an insult to art,
For oh! the sweet swing of it, oh! the dear ring of it.
Oh! the strong pulse of it, right from the heart,
Art or no art.
—
Ella Wheeler Wilcox, in Lippincotf s Magazine.
We always invite difl&culties when we attempt to make

hard and fast classifications under a broad general subject,
and this is especially the case when the subject itself is
not one of clearly marked boundaries. So as we consider

light verse under several rather obvious sub-heads, it
must be kept in mind that these divisions cannot always

be clearly separated from each other —chiefly because one
piece of verse may readily bear marks of two or three sorts,
even when it clearly belongs primarily to one class.
Very little light verse may justly aspire to be classed as
poetry, yet most of the great poets of all time —among

them Aristophanes, Horace, Shakespeare, Milton, Col-
eridge, Burns, Keats, Henley, Mrs. Browning, Holmes,
Taylor, Longfellow, and Emerson —have written delight-
fully in lighter vein, even those whose names are glorious
for sublime poetic achievement frivoling as playfully as
their less serious brothers. The fact that one is a distin-
guished poet offers, therefore, no guarantee that all his
verse is poetry.
Light verse offers a wider range of form than does even
real poetry, for it is obvious that, on the one hand, the
parodist may imitate every form known to the poets while
the whimsical rhymster will invent new conceits every
day. At once the broadest and highest-grade group of
light verse is known as

,
LIGHT VERSE 223
I. Vers de Societe
For this term it is difficult to find a precise English

equivalent. No single word quite includes or describes it,
so we may say that vers de societe is not merely "society

verse," as a literal translation would suggest, but short,
light, sentimental or playful verse of no profound poetic
quality, and breathing an air of polite knowledge of the world.
Verse of this sort is pleasantly plentiful — collectors^ have

filled volumes with graceful specimens. Some critics
maintain that its themes should be confined to the world

of fashion, but most do not limit it so closely. It is certain
however, that an intimacy with "Society" is almost

essential for the successful writer of these sophisticated
verses, which usually celebrate my lady's charms, or some

other theme akin to love.
Touching the composition of such verse, in her "A Vers
de Societe Anthology," Miss Wells quotes these remarks
from Mr. Locker-Lampson : "The tone should not be
pitched high; it should be terse and idiomatic, and rather
in the conversational key; therhythm should be crisp and
sparkling, and the rhyme frequent and never forced. The
entire poem should be marked by tasteful moderation,
high finish, and completeness; for subordination to the
rules of composition, and perfection of execution, are of the
utmost importance.
"The qualities of brevity are absolutely essential. The
poem may be tinctured with a well-bred philosophy, it may
be whimsically sad, it may be gay and gallant, it may be
> Carolyn Wells, Brander Matthews, Frederick Locker-Lamp-
son, Austin Dobson, and W. Davenport Adams, among others.
plajûlly malicious or tenderly ironical, it may display

lively banter, and it may be satirically facetious; it may
even, considering it merely as a work of art, be pagan in
its philosophy or trifling in its tone, but it must never be
flat, or ponderous, or commonplace."
These are rather broad permissions, and probably less
valuable than the final prohibition, but they will serve to

indicate the easy, spontaneous, middle-ground between
the solemn and the comic, the maudlin and the cynical,
which is occupied by vers de societe.
In form there is equal latitude, though the French

meters are favorites with most of the poets. Thackeray's
"The Ballad of Bouillabaisse," Alfred Austin's "At the
Lattice," and Longfellow's "Beware," are among the
most famous specimens in the language. The last-named
we give in full, together with some other representative
examples.
Beware
(From the German)
I know a maiden fair to see,

Take care!
She can both false and friendly be.
Beware! Beware!
Trust her not,
She is fooling thee!
She has two eyes, so soft and brown,

Take care!
!!! ! ;
LIGHT VERSE 225
She gives a side-glance and looks down,

Beware! Beware!
Trust her not,
She is fooling thee
And she has hair of a golden hue,

Take care!
And what she says, it is not true.
Beware! Beware!
Trust her not.
She is fooling thee!
She has a bosom white as snow,

Take care.
She knows how much it is best to show.

Beware! Beware!
Trust her not.
She is fooling thee
She gives thee a garland woven fair,
Take care!
It's a fool's cap for thee to wear.
Beware ! Beware
Trust her not.
She is fooling thee
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
My Chaperon
No Dragon is my chaperon
She's full of life and charm.
She has a method all her own

To hold me safe from harm.
It is a method very wise,
Though simple as can be:
When men come by she makes such eyes
They never look at me.
—
Anne Warrington Withrup.
Song from "The Duenna"
I ne'er could any lustre see
In eyes that would not look on me;

saw nectar on a lip,
I ne'er
But where my own did hope to sip.

Has the maid who seeks my heart
Cheeks of rose, untouched by art?
I will own thy color true.
When yielding blushes aid their hue.
«
Is her hand so soft and pure?
Imust press it, to be sure;
Nor can I be certain then,

Till it, grateful, press again.
Must I, with attentive eye.

Watch her heaving bosom sigh?
I will do so when I see
That heaving bosom sigh for me.

—
Richard Brinsley Sheridan.
The first stanza of Thackeray's "The Ballad of Bouilla-
baisse" will be enough to suggest its theme and treatment:

! ——
LIGHT VERSE 227
A Street there is in Paris famous,
For which no rhyme our language yields,
Rue Neuve des Petits Champs its name is
The New Street of the Little Fields.

And here's an inn, not rich and splendid,
But still in comfortable case;
The which in youth I oft attended

To eat a bowl of Bouillabaisse.
Here are the opening stanzas of Austin Dobson's
"Le Roman de la Rose"
Poor Rose! I lift you from the street,
Far better I should own you

Than you should lie for random feet
Where careless hands have thrown you.
Poor pinky petals, crushed and torn

Did heartless Mayfair use you.
Then cast you forth to lie forlorn.
For chariot- wheels to bruise you?
The remaining six stanzas lightly touch the love interest

which the finding of the rose suggests.
2. Satirical Verse
Wit consists in the sudden revelation of some unexpected

relation between two objects or ideas. This surprising
disclosure must not excite any higher emotion than ad-
miration for the cleverness of the witty person and for his
— —
mental superiority; for example, wit does not arouse

feelings of the sublime, the pitiful, or the tenderly beauti-
ful. It differs from humor mainly in its sharpness. Some-

one has said that "wit laughs at you, humor laughs with
you." Wit is based chiefly on likenesses, humor on in-
congruities. Wit may sneer, but humor never. Wit often

wounds with its keen rapier, humor heals with its balm.
The following variously-quoted couplet is satirically witty:
A woman, a spaniel, a walnut tree

The more you beat 'em, the better they be.
Whereas the incongruous association of moral qualities

with oddities of dress in Albert G. Greene's perennial
"Old Grimes" is humorous:
Old Grimes is dead, that good old man,

We ne'er shall see him more;
He used to wear a long black coat.
All buttoned down before.
Whene'er he heard the voice of pain,
His breast with pity burned;

The large round head upon his cane
From ivory was turned.
Satire is a form of wit which exposes follies and makes

pretension ridiculous. Its object, like that of true comedy,
is to instruct by showing the folly of imprudent courses,
but that purpose is often lost sight of today.
Satirical poetry is very ancient. The Greek comedies
abounded in brilliant examples. Horace and Juvenal
:
LIGHT VERSE 229
have made Roman poetry immortal, Voltaire has caused

French verse to sparkle, while Dryden, Pope, and Byron
have excelled in England, as Lowell did in America. In-
deed, all great poets have written brilliant satire; for it
requires a mind of superior all-round equipment to indite

clever satirical verse.
The range of subject-matter for satirical poetry is as
wide as human weakness. The foibles of Government have
always been a shining target for the satirist, as the follow-
ing extract from Lowell's long composition will illustrate.
It is a portrait of the politician, ''Hosea Biglow, " drawn

by himself.
Dear Sir, You wish— to know my notions

On sartin pints thet rile the land
There's nothin' thet my natur so shuns
Ez bein' mum or underhand;
I'm a straight-spoken kind o' creetur
Thet blurts right out wut's in his head,
An' ef I've one pecooler feetur,

It is a nose thet wunt be led.
So, to begin at the beginnin',

An' come direcly to the pint,
I think the country's underpinnin'

Is some consid'ble out o' jint;
I aint agoin' to try your patience

By tellin' who done this or thet,
I don't make no insinooations,
I jest let on I smell a rat.
— ;
Thet is, I mean, it seems to me so,
But, ef the public think I'm wrong,

I wunt deny but what I be so,
An', fact, it don't smell very strong;

My mind's tu fair to lose its balance
An' say which party hez most sense;
There may be folks o' greater talence
Thet can't set stiddier on the fence.
I'm an eclectic; ez to choosin'
'Twixt this an' thet, I'm plaguy lawth;

I leave a side that looks like losin'.
But (wile there's doubt) I stick to both
I Stan' upon the Constitution,

Ez preudunt statesmun say, who've planned
A way to git the most profusion
O' chances ez to ware they'll stand.
— Biglow Papers.
Practice has not kept pace with precept with regard to
Addison's declaration that his satires should "consider
the crime as it appears in the species, not as it is circum-
stanced in the individual," for many satires flay the indi-
vidual brutally enough. Pope, for instance, instead of

being satisfied to "shoot folly as it flies" sometimes made
direct attacks by name. Such methods rob satire of its
subtlety and turn wit into assault. All genuine wits scorn
to demolish with a bludgeon what they can puncture with

a pen-point. But after all. Pope was subtle, and had a
just hatred of those who fought from ambush. In his
Prologue to "Satires" he scorns those who
; 1
LIGHT VERSE 23
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer;

Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike;
Alike reserv'd to blame, or to commend,
A tim'rous foe, and a suspicious friend.
Dryden drove a middle course at least in his "Absalom

and Achitophel," though he was not always so moderate.
The character of Zimri satirized the Duke of Buckingham.
"The character ... is not bloody," says Dryden
himself in his "Discourse on Satire," "but it is ridiculous
enough, and he for whom it was intended was too witty to
resent it as an injury."
One of the passages which holds the Duke up to ridicule
is this lampoon, which could hardly amuse any but a

highly good-natured subject:
A man so various that he seemed to be

Not one, but all mankind's epitome:
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,
Was everything by starts, and nothing long
But, in the course of one revolving moon.
Was chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon.
Satire that goes too far defeats itself, for it loses the
sympathy of the reader —not to say the person satirized!
"Satire," says Miss Wells in her "A Satire Anthology,"

"depends on the reader. What seems to us satire today
may not seem so tomorrow. Or, what seems satire to a
pessimistic mind, may seem merely good-natured chaff to

an optimist."
One of the famous satires dealing with individuals is
that of Thackeray, poking fun at the then popular craze

for Goethe's romance. Perhaps these lines suggested the
modern art of reviewing books in clever rhymes.
The Sorrows of Werther
Werther had a love for Charlotte
Such as words could never utter;

Would you know how first he met her?
She was cutting bread and butter.
Charlotte was a married lady,

And a moral man was Werther,
And for all the wealth of Indies
Would do notliing for to hurt her.
So he sighed and pined and ogled,

And his passion boiled and bubbled.
Till he blew his silly brains out.
And no more was by it troubled.
Charlotte, having seen his body

Borne before her on a shutter.
Like a well-conducted person.
Went on cutting bread and butter.
The practices of society furnish the themes for by far the

greatestnumber of modern satires which, happily, — are
more bright than waspish, even if less literary than those
of former days. Such satire is of the period, just as Samuel
; ;
LIGHT VERSE 233
Butler lashed the warring churchmen of his era in
"Hudibras, " a bitter, clever diatribe.
For he was of that stubborn crew

Of errant saints, whom all men grant
To be the true Church militant;
Such as do build their faith upon
The holy text of pike and gun
Decide all controversies by
Infallible artillery,
And prove their doctrine orthodox,

By apostolic blows and knocks;
Call fire, and sword, and desolation,
A godly, thorough reformation.
— The Religion of Hudibras.
Burns was less bitter and more effective in the following
stanzas from his "Address to the Unco Guid:"
Oh, ye wha are sae guid yoursel',

Sae pious and sae holy,
Ye've nought to do but mark and tell
Your neibours' fauts an' folly!

Whose life is like a weel-gawn mill.
Supplied wi' store o' water,
The heaped hopper's ebbing still,
An' still the clap plays clatter.

* * *
Then gently scan your brother man.

Still gentler sister woman
Though they may gang a kennin' wrangj

To step aside is human.
One point must still be greatly dark,
The moving why they do it;
An' just as lamely can ye mark
How far, perhaps, they rue it.
It is pleasant to know that Mrs. Browning had no per-

sonal cause to inspire the concluding stanza of her verses.
The opening lines are also reproduced in order to show the
contrast.
A Man's Requirements
Love me, sweet, with all thou art,
Feeling, thinking, seeing;

Love me in the lightest part,
Love me in full being.
Thus, if thou wilt prove me, dear,

Woman's love's no fable,
/ will love thee —half a year.

As a man is able.
Oliver Wendell Holmes dealt out wholesome satire to
the all-bumptious when he wrote this stanza in "A Fa-

miliar Letter to Several Correspondents:"
But remember, O dealer in phrases sonorous,

So daintily chosen, so tunefully matched,
Though you soar with the wings of the cherubim o'er us,
The ovum was human from which vou were hatched.
:
LIGHT VERSE 235
Here is a famous quatrain poem by John Godfrey Saxe:
Woman's Will
Men, dying, make their wills, but wives

Escape a work so sad;
Why should they make what all their lives
The gentle dames have had?
Lowell thus concludes his lines on
The Pious Editor's Creed

"
In short I firmly du believe

In Humbug generally,
Fer it's a thing thet I perceive
To hev a solid vally;
This heth my faithful shepherd ben,
In pasture sweet hath led me.
An' this'U keep the people green,
To feed as they have fed me.
The present-day magazines are constantly adding to our

store of satirical verse. We conclude this section with the
following characteristic examples:
To Be or Not To Be
" You wish to wed my daughter?" said
The father of fair Flo.
" What are your prospects? " George replied
"That's what / want to know!"

— Harold Susman.
— !
No More
I played with Maude in days of yore,
When Bridge became her craze;
But now I play with her no more,
She has such winning ways!
—La Touche Hancock.
The Typical Topical Song
In the midst of the craze for these musical plays
Which hold such remarkable sway,
When an item like plot doesn't matter a jot,
And art has a very small "a,"

At times it will hap that the usual snap
Is lacking, and something goes wrong;
Still, you can reply it will "go" bye and bye
With a typical topical song!
Here's a subject, or two, that often will do,

If sung with a confident nous —
The high price of meat the people will greet
With shouts that will bring down the house

If the tariff you chaflf, 'twill elicit a laugh.
And the subway's especially strong.
And a touch on divorce can't be missing, of course,
From the typical topical song!
Then the suffragette cause will win great applause.

The comet will prove a big draw,
Joy riding, a strike, chauffeurs, and the like,
They'll all of them bring a guffaw!

LIGHT VERSE 237
It won't matter a bit, if the play's not a hit;

You'll find that the public will throng
To the musical piece, which will take a new lease
With this typical topical song!

—La Touche Hancock.
5. Humorous Verse
Humor defies definition. Those who do not know it tor
what it is will never learn from a lexicon ;

yet a good defi-
nition were desirable enough since no two authorities
agree as to where it begins and ends. Either one of two
elements, however, we shall be certain to find in all humor:
a sudden, mirth-provoking surprise, or a playful sense of
the incongruous. And these characteristics of humor in
general, inhere in humorous verse.
As we have already said, the types of light verse often
overlap, and this is most true of humorous lines —a state-

ment too obvious to need proof. We shall find humor in
parody, nonsense rhymes, and whimsical verse, just as we

found it delicately present in much vers de societe.
Humorous verse is as old as literature; for proof read the

following from Aristophanes, which contains both wit and
humor:
Women's Chorus
They're always abusing the women.

As a terrible plague to men:
They say we're the root of all evil,
And repeat it again and again;
—
Of war, and quarrels, and bloodshed.

All mischief, be what it may!
And pray, then, why do you marry us,
If we're all the plagues you say?

And why do you take such care of us,
And keep us so safe at home,

And are never easy a moment
If ever we chance to roam?
When you ought to be thanking heaven
That your plague is out of the way,
You all keep fussing and fretting
"Where is my Plague today?"
If a Plague peeps out of the window.
Up go the eyes of men;
If she hides, then they all go staring
Until she looks out again.
—Translation by William Collins.
Punning verse is a time-honored, or, as some cynics
aver, dishonored type of humorous "poetry," and none
so clever as Tom Hood in its making. "Faithless Nelly
Gray" is so well-known as to make extended quotation
needless.
Ben Battle was a soldier bold.
And used to war's alarms;

But a cannon-ball took off his legs,
So he laid down his arras.

: — !
LIGHT VERSE 239
Now as they bore him off the field
Said he, " Let others shoot,

For here I leave my second leg,
And the Forty-second Foot."
Hood used the same meter in his less-known verses,

"Faithless Sally Brown." The last stanza contains his
famous pun
His death, which happened in his berth.

At forty-odd befell;
They went and told the sexton, and
The sexton tolled the bell.
In Oliver Goldsmith's "Elegy on the Death of a Mad

Dog," we find the same iambic measure:
A kind and gentle heart he had,

To comfort friends and foes:
The naked every day he clad
When he put on his clothes.
Many present-day rhymesters, too, have found iambic

four- threes a convenient form for their humorous verse.
We append several, which illustrate a variety of types.

His Plan
To dodge his creditors, required
Such vigilance and vim,

A motor car he went and hired.
And now they're dodging him

— La Touche Hancock.
" : !
240 the art of versification
One or T'other
An acrobat I chanced to meet,
And these wise words he said
"We must be light upon our feet,
Or light upon our head.

—Sam S. Stinson.
A Nature Faker
The tadpole is a curious beast,
A paradox complete;
For he is but four inches long.
When he has grown four feet.
— E. F. MOBERLY.
Other rhymesters a-plenty adopt other metrical forms
for their punning verse.
Pyro-Technique
Miss Isabel Smith is the maid that we hire,
And one morning this Isabel Smith was on fire.
I quenched the wild flames with a bottle of stout.
And you never saw Isabel Smith so put out

—C. H.
Nomenclature
When Bossy invented a gentleman calf
They him Monseigneur Boule.
called
Next spring when a lady calf dawned on the scene

They christened her Calfy au Lait.
-J. B. E.
1
light verse 24
The Only Way
If he comes to borrow ten,

I am out.
Tell him, ofl&ce boy, again,
I am out.
It's the only way to win.
Or to save my hard-earned tin.

For if he should find me in,
I am out.
—James H. Hubbard.
Sometimes a bit of punning verse like the following will
go the rounds with additions by every paper that prints it.
When many fiction writers try
Their thoughts to give us hot,

We get e-rot-ic novels, with
The accent on the rot.
—LippincoW s Magazine.
When some hair-dressers seek to give

Us hair to fit the hat,
We get er-rat-ic coiffures, with
The accent on the rat.
— Boston Traveler.
And when the fisher leaves the pool

And gladly home does hie.
We get some li-kely stories, with
The accent on the lie.
—Topeka Capital.
:
And when some fellows go down town

At night, they make the bull
Of coming home quite beauti-ful,
With the accent on the ful.
— Denver Post.
Now here we have the daily rhyme,
Though not as fierce as some,
Penned by the office bum-pkin, with
The accent on the bum.
—Atlanta Georgian.
If I were a copy-reader,
Forced to suffer such attacks,
Some poor poet would get an ax-sent,

With the accent on the ax.
—Dudley Glass in LippincotVs Magazine.
A typical bit of contemporary humorous verse in the
style of Hood is this
The Suicide
The painters came to us one day,

Our woodwork to demolish.
And on the stairs they left a can
Of finest hardwood polish.
Our puppy's name is Cyrus Sims,

A king of past offences.
Our puppy ate that sticky can
And dared the consequences.
LIGHT VERSE 243
"Oh Cyrus, are you going to die?

What makes your breath diminish? "
" I cannot say, " the pup replied,
"I fear it is the finish."

—Chester Firkins.
Many capital "poems" do not depend upon the pun,
but present humor of idea or humor of situation. Here are
several in this different vein:
The Voice of the East to the Voice of the West

A most appreciative cuss.
The Sun gets up to look at us.

But when he strikes the West instead
He gets so bored he goes to bed.
—
McLandburgh Wilson.
The Voice of the West to the Voice of theÊast
'Tis true that in the East the Sun

Doth rise, and yet 'tis evident
He likes it not, but hastens West
And settles down in sweet content!
— C. B.U.
It's Very Queer
When you call a girl a kitten

You are sure to get a pat,
So why should you get the mitten
When you say she is a cat?
But you do.
" —"
If you say a girl's a vision,

It will fill her with delight,
So there should be no collision
When you say she is a sight.

But there is.
You call a man a sly old dog;

He asks you in to sup;
Why should it set his wrath agog
When you say he is a pup?
But it does.
—Cecilia A. Loizeaux.
Warning
Unless opprobrium you seek,
Don't call your native town " unique.
The word's derived, you know, of course,
From unus, one, and equus, horse.
Katharine Perry.—
Some of the best humor-verse of the day is in dialect
often with a touch of sentiment added. The following

lines by Mr. Bangs are quite as full of homely philosophy
as if they had been taken from Lowell's "Biglow Papers,
while "Christmas" shows us the gifted negro poet,
Dunbar, in his best humorous vein.
Where the Fun Comes in
To hev all things, ain't suited to my mind,

Fer, as I go my way, I seem to find
That half the fun o' life is wantin' things,
An' t' other half is gettin' 'em, by Jings!
—John Kendrick Bangs.
! ;
light verse 245
Christmas
Step wid de banjo an' glide wid de fiddle,
Dis' aln' no time fu' to pottah an' piddle;

Fu' Christmas is comin', it's right on de way,
An' dey's houahs to dance 'fo' de break o' de day.
What if de win' is a taihin' an' whistlin'?

Look at dat fiah how hit's spittin' and bristlin'
Heat in de ashes an' heat in de cindahs,
or Mistah Fros' kin des look thoo de windahs.
Heat up de toddy an' pas' de wa'm glasses,

Don' stop to shivah at blowin's an' blas'es,
Keep on de kittle an' keep it a hummin',
Eat all an' drink all, dey's lots mo' a-comin'.
Look hyeah, Maria, don't open dat oven.
Want all dese people a-pushin' an' shovin'?
Res' from de dance? yes, you done cotch dat odah,

Mammy done cotch it, an' law! hit nigh flo'd huh
'Possum is monst'ous fu' mekin' folks fin' it!
Come, draw yo' cheers up, I's sho' I do' min' it.
Eat up dem critters, you men folks an' wimmens,

'Possums ain' skace w'en dey's lots o' pu'simmons.
—Paul Lawrence Dunbar.
4. Parody and Travesty
Parody is mimicry rather than imitation and has for its
object either the casting of more or less good-natured

ridicule on the original, or merely the convenient use of a
well-known poem usually in zest, though light verse may

be parodied in serious verses. Parody becomes travesty
or burlesque when carried to the extreme of the ridiculous

— though burlesque and extravaganza need not parody a
specific original, but may poke fun at a general type. Ex-
travaganza is also taken to mean uproarious fun of any sort.
In common with other forms of light verse, parody is
ancient, and many able poets have indulged in it —at

times; its constant practice, however, is anything but a
mark of originality. It is only too common to see poems
of beauty and thoughts of sublimity mangled, without the
slightest trace of cleverness in the perpetrator. But bright

parody always retains something of the original flavor
while it wittily turns aside to produce either merited ridi-
cule or wholesome fun.
Miss Wells has adequately divided parodies into three

classes: first, those which consist in word-rendering, de-
p)ending for their interest "entirely upon the substitution
of a trivial or commonplace motive for a lofty one;"
second, form-rendering, or "the imitation of the style of an
author, preferably an author given to mannerisms of some
sort;" third, sense-rendering, which is "by far the most
meritorious, and utilizes not only the original writer's
diction and style, but follows a train of thought precisely
along the lines that he would have pursued from the given
premises."
A fourth class, which begins with the exact words of the
parodied verse and ends with something quite different,
is frequent today and mainly limited to one or two short
stanzas. This may be called the semi-parody.
;
LIGHT VERSE 247
A series of examples of these several forms is appended.

Comparison with the originals will make interesting work
for the rhymester and the student.
(a) Word-renderings.
The Bat
(After Jane Taylor)
Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!

How I wonder what you're at!
* * *
Up above the world you fly,
Like a tea-tray in the sky.

—Lewis Carroll.
The Bridge
(After Longfellow)
They stood on the bridge at midnight.

In a park not far from the town
They stood on the bridge at midnight,
Because they didn't sit down.
The moon rose o'er the city.

Behind the dark church spire;
The moon rose o'er the city.

And kept on rising higher.
How often, oh, how often!

They whispered words so soft;
How often, oh, how often;
How often, oh, how oft!
—Ben King.
—
The Marriage of Sir John Smith
(After Charles Wolfe)
Not a sigh was heard, nor a funeral tone,

As the man to his bridal we hurried;
Not a woman discharged her farewell groan.
On the spot where the fellow was married.
We married him just about eight at night,

Our faces paler turning.
By the struggling moonbeams' misty light,

And the gas-lamp's steady burning.
* * *
Few and short were the things we said,

And we spoke not a word of sorrow.
But we silently gazed on the man that was wed.
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.
We thought, as we silently stood about,
With spite and anger dying,

How the merest stranger had cut us out.
With only half our trying.
* * *
But our heavy task at length was done,

When the clock struck the hour for retiring;
And we heard the spiteful squib and pun
The girls were sullenly firing.
Slowly and sadly we turned to go,

We had struggled and we were human;
We shed not a tear, and we spoke not our woe,
But we left him alone with his woman.
— Phoebe Carey.
!
LIGHT VERSE 249
{b) Form-renderings
The Amateur Flute
(After Poe)
Hear the fluter with his flute,
Silver flute!
Oh, what a world of wailing is awakened by its toot!
How it demi-semi-quavers
On the maddened air of night
And defieth all endeavors
To escape the sound or sigh
Of the flute, flute, flute.
With its tootle, tootle, toot;
With reiterated tootleing of exasperating toots,

The long protracted tootleing of agonizing toots
Of the flute, flute, flute.
Flute, flute, flute,
And the wheezings and the spittings of its toots.
Should he get that other flute.
Golden flute.
Oh, what a deeper anguish will his presence institoot!

How his eyes to heaven he'll raise.
As he plays.
All the days!
How he'll stop us on our ways
With its praise!
And the people — oh, the people.

That don't live up in the steeple,
But inhabit Christian parlors

— ;
Where he visiteth and plays,

Where he plays, plays, plays,
In the cruellest of ways.
And thinks we ought to listen,
And expects us to be mute.

Who would rather have the earache
Than the music of his flute.
Of his flute, flute, flute,
And the tootings of his toot,

Of the toots wherewith he tooteth its agonizing toot,
Of the flute, flewt, fluit, floot,
Phlute, phlewt, phlewght.

And the tootle, tootle, tooting of its toot.
—Anonymous.
Ye Clkkke of \'k Wethekk
(After Chaucer)
A clerke there was, a puissant wight was hee,
Who of ye wethere hadde ye maisterie;

Alway it was his mirth and his solace
To put each seson's wethere oute of place.

Whanne that Aprille showres wer our desyre.
He gad us Julye sonnes as hotte as fyre;
But sith ye summere togges we donned agayne,
Eftsoons ye wethere chaunged to cold and rayne.
Wo was the pilgrimme who fared forth a-foote.
Without any gyngham that him list uppe-putte
And gif no mackyntosches eke had hee,
A parlous state that wight befelle —pardie!
; 1
LIGHT VERSE 25
We wist not gif it nexte ben colde or hotte,

Cogswounds! ye barde a grewsome colde hath gotte!
Certes, that Gierke's one mightie man withalle,
Let none don him offence, lest ille befalle.

—Anonymous.
(c) Sense-rendering
One stanza only is given from the following:
Ode on a Jar of Pickles

(After Keats)
A sweet, acidulous, down-reaching thrill

Pervades my sense. I seem to see or hear
The lushy garden-grounds of Greenwich Hill
In autumn, where the crispy leaves are sere
And odors haunt me of remotest spice
From the Levant or musky-aired Cathay,
Or the saffron-fields of Jerico,
Where everything is nice.
The more I sniff, the more I swoon away,
And what else mortal palate craves, forego.
—
Bayard Taylor.
{d) Semi- Parodies
A Real Summer Girl

(After Whittier)
Maud MuUer on a summer's day

Raked the meadow sweet with hay.
You'd hardly expect a girl, you know,
In summertime to be shovelling snow.
— J. G. Neumarker.
Another Wise Man
(After a Nursery Rhyme)
There was a man in our town,
And wondrous wise was he;

He took his axe one autumn day
And chopped down an old tree.
And when he saw the tree was down,

With all his might and main
He swung his axe with lusty strokes
And chopped it up again.
—E. F. Moberly.
Reverse Engush
(After a Nursery Rhyme)
A diller, a dollar, a ten-o'clock scholar;

What makes you come so fast?
You used to be behind before,
But now you're first at last.
-L. C. Davis.
A Chain of Parodies
The Original
There was a man in our town.
And he was wondrous wise.
He jumped into a bramble bush

And scratched out both his eyes.
;
!
LIGHT VERSE 253
And when he saw his eyes were out

With all his might and main
He jumped into another bush
And scratched them in again.
If Mr. R-dy-rd K-pl-ng had conceived this idea, we

should probably know it in this guise:
A man there was who was wondrous wise

(Even as you and I!)
He jumped in a bush where he lost both eyes.

His action occasioned a great surprise,
But he said he needed the exercise
(Even as you and I!)
Oh, the sightless strain and the burning pain

It stung like a white-hot brand.
He jumped in another bush near-by
And scratched them in with a heart- felt sigh
How — I ne'er could understand.
I am quite sure Miss C-r-lyn W-lls would have made a
limerick of it, thus:
A wise man in one of his rambles

Lost his eyes in a big bush of brambles.
He jumped with a cheer
In another bush near
And scratched them back in with mad scrambles.
Omar might have incorporated it into the Rubaiyat:

:
A Native of Our Town who was most wise,
While seeking Something novel to devise,

Into a Bush of Brambles took a Leap,
And 'mid Its Branches scratched out both His Eyes.
And when He saw that both His Eyes were out,

He paused for One Brief Moment as in Doubt,
And then into Another Bush he jumped
And scratched back in His Peepers with a Shout,
From Virgil's pen it would have come to us as a flowing

hexameter:
Wondrous the wisdom and nerve of a man in our town

whom I sing of.
Who, while out tramping and quietly seeking for novel

diversion,
Recklessly leaped in a bush full of prickles and scratched
both his eyes out.
He, when he found that his peepers had suffered complete
extirpation,
Sought for a similar bush, which he jumped in and quickly
restored them.
H-ry W. L-gf-11-w might have given it to the world in

this form
Once a wise man in our village.

Longing for a new sensation.
Jumped into a bush of brambles
Where he damaged his apparel.
LIGHT VERSE 255
Likewise rasped his epidermis,

Also scratched out both his peepers.
When he saw his eyes were missing,
Heeding not his frayed condition.
He another bush selected

Into which he took a header,
And amid its thorny branches
Both his orbs he soon recovered.
Mr. W-ll-ce Ir-in might have woven it into a tuneful
jingle in this fashion:
man of renown,
In our quiet old town lived a
And he was exceedingly wise.
He made a mad rush at a blackberry bush
And jumped in and scratched out his eyes.
When he saw they were out, he hunted about
Till that bush's twin brother he found,
Which he quickly jumped in, sadly scarring his skin,
And emerged with his eyes safe and sound.
—Edmund Moberly.
5. Nonsense Verse
This type of light verse is that which conveys merely

nonsensical or ludicrous ideas. The result may be chiefly
brought about by such ingenious verbal inventions as have
endeared Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear to millions.
Who has not felt with conviction that "a runcible hat"
was really worn by the charming writer who conceived the
term! And who has not longed to know the joys of a
—
"frabjous day!" These meaningless words are somehow

so convincing that we find ourselves believing in them
somewhere they must be real language, as indeed they
have been to the old and young children of three genera-
tions.
Then, too, there is a rhythmical appropriateness about

each nonsense-line by these genuine artists, and those
written by many of their imitators, that is the sign and
seal of artistry. Read " Jabberwocky " aloud and you feel
the joy of its sound and movement. Then try to substi-

tute either dictionary words or concoctions of your own,
and note the loss.
But meaningless words were woven into patterns of

verse long before Lear and Carroll sang, so that these
merry friends of children must not have all the credit
belonging to inventors. Yet they, above all others, per-
fected the gentle art of mingling nonsense, no sense, and

very good sense.
On many accounts it will pay all poets and rhymesters
if any there be so unfortunate as not to know these delights
— to read and study the verses in "Alice in Wonderland"
and "Through a Looking Glass" by Lewis Carroll (Charles
L. Dodgson), the collected "Nonsense Books" by Edward
Lear, the "Bab Ballads" by W. S. Gilbert, whose work
with Sir Arthur Sullivan in their light operas has made the
world their debtor, and "A Nonsense Anthology" by
Carolyn Wells, with its charming introductory essay. Our
magazines are also constantly purveying new verses by
Mr. Gelett Burgess, who invented the "purple cow;" Mr.
Oliver Herford, who has introduced us to other animals
! : ; !
LIGHT VERSE 257
outside the zoo; Miss Wells, who makes good verse as well
as judges it; and several other scarcely less ingenious and
graceful rhymesters.
Jabberwocky
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe

All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that scratch
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"
He took his vorpal sword in hand

Long time the manxome foe he sought.
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock with eyes of flame,
Came whiflBng through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came
One, two! One, two! And through, and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead and with its head
He went galumphing back.
; —
! ; !
"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy
Oh, frabjous day! Callooh! callay!"
He chortled in his joy.
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe

Allmimsy were the borogoves
And the mome raths outgrabe.
—Lewis Carroll.
Is not all this very real after all? Perhaps, we feel, if
only we knew a little more, we might comprehend every

part of the thrilling adventure with the Jabberwock. As
it is, the wonderful invention never fails, in that remark-
able way which art claims for its own, to possess the imagi-
nation utterly.
Observe now the lilting quality of these lines by Lear:
The Owl and the Pussy-Cat
The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat

They took some honey, and plenty of money
Wrapped up in a five-pound note.
The Owl looked up to the moon above,
And sang to a small guitar,
" O lovely Pussy O Pussy my love
! ,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,

You are,
What a beautiful Pussy you are!"
— "— —
LIGHT VERSE 259
Pussy said to the Owl, "You elegant fowl!

How wonderful sweet you sing!
O let us be married, — too long we have tarried,
But what shall we do for a ring?"
They sailed away for a year and a day
To the land where the Bong tree grows
And there in a wood, a piggy-wig stood,
With a ring at the end of his nose,
His nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose.
"Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring? " Said the piggy, " I will.

So they took it away, and were married next day
By the turkey, who lives on the hill.
They dined upon mince and slices of quince.

Which they ate with a runcible spoon,
And hand in hand on the edge of the sand
They danced by the light of the moon,

The moon.
They danced by the light of the moon.
— Edwakd Leak.
The succeeding stanzas are from recent magazine non-

sense verse: ^_
The Misanthrope
I wisht wuz a crow's egg,

I
I wisht I wuz a bad one.

; —
I wisht there was a small boy a-climbin' up the tree;
I wisht he'd climb an' climb, an' madly shout he had one
I'd burst my shell,
With horrid smell,

An' cover him with me.
— G. Mayo.
Ballad of Bedlam
Oh, lady, wake! the azure moon

Is rippling in the verdant skies;
The owl is warbling his soft tune,
Awaiting but thy snowy eyes.
The joys of future years are past,
To-morrow's hopes have fled away
Still let us love, and e'en at last
We shall be happy yesterday.
The early beam of rosy night
Drives off the ebon morn afar,
While through the murmur of the light
The huntsman winds his mad guitar.

Then, lady, wake! my brigantine
Pants, neighs and prances to be free;
Till the creation I am thine.
To some rich desert fly with me.

—Punch.
ESKITOLOGY
A little igloo now and then

Is relished by the Eskimen.
—Nashville Tennessean.
1
LIGHT VERSE 26
A little whale oil, well frappeed,

Is relished by the Eskimaid.
—Washington Herald.
A little gumdrop, this is truth,
Is relished by the Eskitooth.

—Detroit Free Press.
A little blubber, raw or b'iled,

Is relished by the Eskichild,
—Cleveland Plain Dealer.
The all of which shows just how hard
The grind is for the Eskibard.
— Buffalo Evening News.
But poets might detect a gap,

'Tween truth and Peary's Eskimap.
— Brooklyn Eagle.
And think that Peary, in straits dire,
Rejoiced to find an Eskiliar!
— Florida Times-Union.
A little pemmicanchaw to
Is welcomed by the Eskimaw.

— Chicago Record-Herald.
We could keep this up all fall,
But fear 'twould make the Eskibawl.
— St. Louis Times.
— —
a62 THE ART OF VERSIFICATION
Tis said two gximdrops and a knife

Will buy a man an Eskiwdfe.
—Houston^Pw/.
This sort of rhyming ought to stop
It's hard uf)on the Eskipop.
— Karl von Kraft, in LippincoWs.
That unique form of stanza known as the limerick, was
developed by Edward Lear, who himself wrote more than
two hundred —of varying merit —illustrated by his own
grotesque drawings, which often supplied the humor lack-
ing in the limericks. Since then every rhymester has had
his passion for limericks, and clever ones are still popular.
In form, they are printed either in four lines or five—
usually five; but four-line limericks contain an internal
rhyme in the third line, which in the five-line limerick is
divided so as to make lines three and four. Here are two

examples by Lear —one of four and the other of five lines
both of which begin, as do nearly all his limericks, with

" There was an old — " or " There was a young —".
Natu-
rally, variety began to grow difficult after a time, and later
rhymesters have been more free, and thus have done more
to improve the humor of the limerick than did Mr. Lear
himself.
There was an Old Man with a beard,

Who said, "It is just as I feared!
Two Owls and a Hen, four Larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard I"
: " " "
LIGHT VERSE 263
There was an Old Man in a tree,
Who was terribly bored by a bee;

When they said, " Does it buzz? "
He replied, "Yes, it does!
It's a regular brute of a Bee.
This limerick was cleverly parodied by W. S. Gilbert.
Notice that he laughingly omits the rhymes.
There was an Old Man of St. Bees,

Who was stimg in the arm by a wasp.
"
When they asked, " Does it hurt?
He replied, "No, it doesn't,
But I thought all the while 'twas a Hornet!
Some limericks from current magazines are here ap

pended
A dentist, whose surname was Moss,

Fell in love with the charming Miss Ross;
But he held in abhorrence
Her Christian name, Florence,
So he called her his Dental Floss.
—Carolyn Wells.
Said the stuttering baritone Gants,
When asked by the chorister Rants
If 'twas his desire
To sing in the choir,

"I'd j-j-j-jump at the chants.
—T. C. McCONNKLL.
—
: ' — : "
See how the stuttering adds three syllables to the last

line of the foregoing and so fills out the meter.
A Turk with a sizable harem

Said, "I love 'em and really can't spare 'em;
But they call me '

His Nibs,
And say they're my 'ribs,'
Though I wish they were less hanmi-scarum !
—Robert T. Hardy.
A lachrymose lady from Sioux
Whose lover was sadly untrioux,
Refused to believe
She could not retrieve
Her lover by crying, "bioux, hioux!''
—J. B. E.
A canner, exceedingly canny,

One morning remarked to his granny
" A canner can can anything that he can,
But a canner can't can a can, can he? "

—James H. Hubbard.
There was a tall Russian named Muski

Wumiskiliviskivitchuski
You may say his name twice.
If you think it sounds nice,
But I bet it will make your voice husky.

— Harry A. Rothrock.
"
LIGHT VERSE 265
A nautical person named Hugh,

When informed that his cap was askew,
Cried, " Avast there ! Belay!
I wear it that way
Because it is pictures^we/
— Robert T. Hardy.
There was once a yoimg person named Clare,
Who adopted a Frenchij5ed air.
She drank cafe noir,
And when told "Au revoir,"

Would always reply, "Pomme de terre!"
Robert — T. Hardy.
6. Whimsical Verse
Rhymesters are constantly seeking out new forms for
their ingenuity. The results are often extremely diverting.
Not all the whimsical verse-forms are new, however, for

some date back centuries. A few of the most interesting
forms are here reproduced under two general classifications.
(a) Oddities of Conception
(1) Twists of Language
An Autumnal Love Song
Dnow id th' berry Autub-timb,

Whed stars are bridt abobe,
I cob bedeath your widdow, dear,
To seredade my lub.
! —
Oh! I cad bake you sweeder sogs

Thad ere were sug of old;
I've god a soul all full ob lub,
Add a head all full ob cold
— M. M. P. K.
Love as it is Grammared
I vow I'm caught by Cupid's ruses,
(If not by his'n, why then by whoses?)

When on thy bosom rest red roses,
Oh, how I wish that I were thoses;

And when thy cheek is kissed by breezes
'Tis then that I would fain be theses.
E'en when I reach my last long bourne
I'll wish my chance might be like vourn.

-J. B. E.
(2) Mnemonics
Verse of this sort carries its definition in its title
memory helps.
Thirty days have September,

April, June, and November;
All the rest have thirty-one
Save the second month alone,
And Leap- Year makes it twenty-nine.
—Old Rhyme.
(3) Mosaic or Cento Verse
The first stanza of "My Genevieve," an anonymous
"poem," will serve as an example of a mosaic, which is
composed of lines taken from dillerent writers.
I only knew came and went Powell

she
Like troutlets in a pool; Hood
She was a phantom of delight, Wordsworth
And I was like a fool. Eastman.
LIGHT VERSE 267
(4) Macaronic Verse
This form consists of the mingling of two or more lan-

guages. One stanza of an anonymous "poem," "Ich Bin
Dein, " will suffice as an example:
In tempus old a hero lived,

Qui loved puellae deux;
He ne pouvait pas quite to say
Which one amabat mieux.
(6) Archaic or Dialect Verse
Ye Deceitful Balladist
{He halladelh.) Ye solitarie Damselle

Laye mayking of her moane,
Her moane laye she a- mayking
All by herself, alone.
None other soul came thither,

Wept she in secrecie
All in her turret chamber.
Where none myght hap to be.
Yea, in ye stillsome stillness
That moansome Damselle cried,
Nor any eye of mortal
Her wearie woe espied.
In sighful, sadful soblets

She moaned her distresse,
Ay, nursed she her sorrowe

In lomliest loneHnesse.
{One butteth in.) But naye, thou ballad baldhead,

An thou the truth do speak,
How knewest of the Damselle
Lest wentest thou to peek?
—Frederick Moxon.
(b) Oddities of Form
Under this heading may be grouped a wide variety of
verse, all whimsical, which depends for its interest on its
form quite as much as on its ingenuity of idea. There is
no limit to the possible varieties, a considerable number of

which follow in examples.
(1) Whimsical Shapes

A Friend in Need
This is
that
old
and
fra-
grant
friend
which makes my
life worth while!
Sweet peace it's very
sure to lend, till I
find worry's at an
end, and stretch
back with a
smile.
— Charles C. Jones.
;
light verse 269
At Yule Time
It's
now the
time for
Christmas trees,
mistletoe, and holly;
sleigh-bells ringing o'er
the breeze, and everybody

jolly ; the children all will eat
their fill of turkey, sauce, and

candy, and Mother will be sure to
have the paregoric handy; relatives and

friends will come to pay their annual
visit;
and
swear
by all
the
saints
above
that
everything's exquisite
gifts to make to
every one, and
that's the very reason
I save the ones they

give to me; then give
them back next season.
—Charles La Tourette.
— — :
(2) Typographical Oddities
The Descent of Briggs

Briggs went to call on Miss de Loop;
Alas, he was not fit
For as he staggered up the stoop

hit.
he
gait
the
is
This
The irate father of the girl
Swore softly as he lit
With both feet on poor Briggs, and —whirl!

This
SI
the
he
The pointed insult of it all
To Briggs (just think of it!)
Was where he landed from his fall
'
CO
• .22 • W3 • -3
• ^• • -^ •
—J. B. E.
— ; 1
LIGHT VERSE 27
(S) Acrostics
Of the several varieties of acrostics three examples are

given.
Single Acrostic
Friendship, thou'rt false! I hate thy flattering smile!

Return to me those years I spent in vain.
In early youth the victim of thy guile,
Each joy took wing ne'er to return again,

Ne'er to return; by hopes deceived,
for, chilled
Dully the slow-paced hours now move along

So changed the times when thoughtless I believed
Her honeyed words, and heard her siren song.
If e'er, as me, she lure some youth to stray,

Perhaps, before too late, he'll listen to my lay.
—Anonymous.
Particular Acrostic
Though crost in our affections, still the flames

Of Honour shall secure our noble Names
Nor shall Our fate divorce our faith, Or cause
The least Mislike of love's Diviner laws.
Crosses sometimes Are cures,Now let us prove,
That no strength Shall Abate the power of lo\e:
Honour, wit, beauty, Riches, wise men call
Frail fortune's Badges, In true love lies all.
Therefore we Yield to him, our Vows shall be

Paid — Read, and written in Eternity:
That All may know when men grant no Redress,
Much love can sweeten the unhappinessS.
—Thomas Jordan.
Special Acrostic
A Valentine
Read the first letter of the first line in connection with

the second letter of the second line, the third letter of the
third line, and so on to the end.
For her this line is penned whose luminous eyes.

Brightly expressive as the twins of Loeda,
Shall find her own sweet name, that, nestling, lies
Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader.

Search narrowly the — they hold a treasure
lines!
Divine, —a talisman, —an amulet

That must be worn at heart. Search well the measure
The words, the syllables! Do not forget
The trivialest point, or you may lose your labor!
And yet there is in this no Gordian knot,
Which one might not undo without a sabre,
If one could merely comprehend the plot.
Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peering

Eyes scintillating soul, there lie perdus,
Three eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing
Of poets, by poets,— as the name is a poet's too.

Its letters although naturally lying
Like the knight Pinto — Mendez Ferdinando,
Still form a synonym for Truth. Cease trying,
You will not read the riddle though you do the best
you can do.
—Edgar Allen Poe.
LIGHT VERSE 273
(4) Enigma
The Letter O
Ten fish I caught without an eye,

And nine without a tail;
Six had no head, and half of eight
I weighed upon the scale.
Now who can tell me, as I ask it,
How many fish were in my basket?

—Anonymous.
(6) Alliterative Conceits
Sudden swallows swiftly skimming,
Sunset's slowly spreading shade.

Silvery songsters sweetly singing,
Summer's soothing serenade. Etc.
—Anonymous.
(6) Letter Verse
A Man or Letters
An A.B. who was also C D,

And of money who hadn't N E,
"Said, "I'll write an S A
On the 'Age of D K,'
And I'll sell it for cash, don't U C?"
— Frank M. Bicknelj..
!
7J4 THE ART OF VERSIFICATION
(7) Geographical Whimseys
My Widespread Indebtedness
Iowa Tenn. to my Cousin Cal.
I'll. Pa. it as soon as I Kan.
Del. Johnsing (Col.) I owe for the Wash.
And Mo. to the cook, Miss. Anne!
Ohio high do the prices fly!
And interest has Ariz.

And I can't be Ga. for the bills I must Pa.
O. La. but 'tis sad, I Wis.
If I could find a man I could Conn.

I'd Pa. the family Md.,
But I've tried the loan agents o'er and Ore.
And I meet with a cold N. C.
O. Iowa Tenn. that I never Kan. Pa.,

And the V a. friend wants must go by;
I'll, never Mo. Pa. the Maine Mass. of my debts.
But Ala. man Kan. do is (t) R. I.!
— Augustine W. Breedin.
(8) Lipograms
(I the only vowel)
Idling I sit in this mild twilight dim,

Whilst birds, in wild swift vigils, circling skim.
Light wings in sighing sink, till, rising bright.
Night's Virgin Pilgrim swims in vivid light.

—Anonymous.
; ; — - !
light verse 275
The Fate of Nassan

(E is omitted)
Bold Nassan quits his caravan,

A hazy mountain grot to scan
Climbs jaggy rocks to spy his way,
Doth tax his sight, but far doth stray.
Not work of man, nor sport of child,

Finds Nassan in that mazy wild;
Lax grow his joints, limbs toil in vain —
Poor wight ! Why didst thou quit that plain
Vainly for succor Nassan calls.
Know, Zillah, that thy Nassan falls;
But prowling wolf and fox may joy

To quarry on thy Arab boy.
—Anonymous.
(9) Ntimerical Oddities
"In Mournful Numbers"
One iders at the 4otude

By I poor youth displayed;
Whom 4tune's cruel 4ce pursued
He 4feited a maid!
They'd met beside a ybush;

The hour was rather 18
His loder words raised many a blush;

Begly then smiled F8!
— — ;
!
For when F8 smiles beg, beware!

'Tis 10 2 I her plan
Is 2 call 4th those dogs of war
She 6 upon a man!
Those dogs rushed 4th —4 dog read bull
The maiden, where was she?

With loder care 4 her quite full
The lover climbed a tree.
He clung there with loacity;

His every nerve was loce;
Prepared 2 catch the maid was he,
And hold her in suspense.
Alas 4 him! The maid mistook

What his iniotions were
As 4 the bull, his head he shook
And tossed her otherwhere!
You won't believe the % 5 told,
Although you o 2 try.
In deference to the maxim old

That figures do not lie!
—George B. More wood.

\ (10) Internal Rhjrmes
Beginning Rhyme
Rat-tat it went upon the lion's chin;
" That hat, I know it " cried the joyful
!
girl
"Summer's it is, I know him by his knock;

Comers like him (sic) are welcome as the day
LIGHT VERSE 277
Lizzy \ go down and open the street door;

BusyI am to any one but him.
Know him you must—he has been often here,

Show him upstairs, and tell him I'm alone. " Etc.
—Thomas Hood.
Middle Rhyme
When I, sir, play at cricket, sick it makes me feel;
For I the wicket kick it backward with my heel.
Then, Oh ! such rollers bowlers always give to me,

And the rounders, grounders, too, rise and strike my knee;
When I in anguish languish, try to force a smile.
While laughing critics round me soimd me on my style.
— A nonymous.
(11) Prose Verse
The Purist
"William Henry," said the parent, and his voice was

sad and stern, "I detest the slang you're using; will you
never, never learn that correct use of our language is a
thing to be desired? All your common bughouse phrases
make the shrinking highbrow tired. There is nothing
more delightful than a pure and careful speech, and the
man who weighs his phrases always stacks up as a peach,
while the guy who shoots his larynx in a careless slipshod
way looms up as a selling-plater, people brand him for a
jay. In my youth my father soaked me if I entered his
shebang handing out a line of language that he recognized

as slang. He would take me to the cellar, down among the
: :
mice and rats, and with nice long sticks of stovewood he'd
play solos on my slats. Thus I gained a deep devotion for
our language undefiled, and it drives me nearly batty when
I hear my only child springing wads of hard-boiled lan-
guage such as dips and yeggmen use, and I want a reforma-
tion or I'll stroke you with my shoes. Using slang is just a
habit, just a cheap and dopey trick ; if you hump yourself
and try to, you can shake it pretty quick. Watch my
curves and imitate them, weigh your words before they're
spnmg, and in age you'll bless the habit that you formed
when you were young."
—Walt Mason.
(12) Alphabetical
A is an Angel of blushing eighteen

B is the Ball where the Angel was seen
C is her Chaperon, who cheated at cards:
D is the Deux temps, with Frank of the Guards : Etc.
— C. S. Calverley.
(13) Monorhymes
To Mrs. Thrale on Her Thirty-Fifth Birthday

Oft in danger, yet alive.
We are come to thirty-five;
Long may better years arrive.
Better years than thirty-five.
Could philosophers contrive
Life to stop at thirty-five.
Time his hours should never drive
O'er the bounds of thirty-five.
LIGHT VERSE 279
High to soar, and deep to dive,

Nature gives at thirty-five.
Ladies, stock and tend your hive,

Trifle not at thirty-five;
For, howe'er we boast and strive,
Life declines from thirty-five.

He that ever hopes to thrive
Must begin by thirty-five;
And all who wisely wish to wive
Must look on Thrale at thirty-five.
—
Samuel Johnson.
(14) Chain Verse
Chain of Single Words
Nerve thy soul with doctrines noble,

Noble in the walks of time.
Time that leads to an eternal.
An eternal life sublime: Etc.
Anonymous.
Chain of Phrases
The rarer seen, the less in mind.

The less in mind, the lesser pain,
The lesser pain, less grief I find,
The lesser grief, the greater gain.
The greater gain, the merrier I,
Therefore I wish thy sight to fly.
—Barnaby Googe.
;
(16) Palindrome Lines
The italicized words read the same backward as forward.
A crazy dentist might declare, as something strange or new,

That Paget saw an Irish tooth, sir, in a waste gap! True!
Etc.
—H. Campkin.
(16) Tongue Twisters
Betty bit a bit of butter,

Bitter bit!
But a better bit of batter
Betty bit.
—Anonymous.
(17) Equivocal
Panegyric on the Ladies
Read the lines regularly or alternately — that — is, in any

of three ways: i, 2, 3, 4, etc.; i, 3, 5, 7, etc.; or 2, 4, 6, 8.
That man must lead a happy life
Who's free from matrimonial chains.

Who is directed by a wife
Is sure to suffer for his pains.
Adam could find no solid peace

When Eve was given for a mate
Until he saw a woman's face
Adam was in a happy state. Etc.
—Anonymous.
" 1
UGHT VERSE 28
(18) Echo Verses
Echo
Asked of Echo, t'other day
(Whose words are few and often funny),
What to a novice, she could say
Of courtship, love and matrimony.
Quoth Echo, plain: "Matter-o'-money!"
Whom should I marry? Should it be

A dashing damsel gay and pert,
A pattern of inconstancy;
Or selfish, mercenary flirt?
Quoth Echo sharply: "Nary flirt!
What if, aweary of the strife
That long has lured the dear deceiver,

She promised to amend her life,
And sin no more ; can I believe her?

Quoth Echo, very promptly: "Leave her!"
But if some maiden with a heart

On me should venture to bestow it,
Pray, should I act the wiser part

To take the treasure or forego it?
Quoth Echo, with decision: "Go it!"
But what if, seemingly afraid

To bind her fate in Hymen's fetter,
She vows she means to die a maid,

In answer to my loving letter?
Quoth Echo, rather coolly: "Let her I"
What if, in spite of her disdain,

I find my heart entwined about
With Cupid's dear delicious chain
So closely that I can't get out?
Quoth Echo, laughingly: "Get out."
But if some maid with beauty blest,

As pure and fair as Heaven can make her
Will share my labor and my rest
Till envious death shall overtake her?
Quoth Echo (sotto voce): "Take her!"
—John Godfrey Saxe.
(19) Anagram Lines
Telegram
Though but a late germ, with a wondrous elation,
Yet like a great elm it o'ershadows each station,
Et malgre the oflSce is still a large free mart.
So joyous the crowd was, you'd thought it a glee marl,
But they raged at no news from the nations belligerent,
And I said, "Let 'em rage, since the air is refrigerant. " Etc.
—
Dr. John Abernkthy.
(20) Disclosed Anagram
Bertha
(The italicized words are made up of the same letters.)
Lady Bertha, the beautiful bather, one day,

After swimming and diving and splashing away,
Found her breath was not equal to further display.
So starting for cricket, she took up her bat.
When the wind found a berth 'cross the bar for her hat
—
I
Anonymous.
;
LIGHT VERSE 283
(21) Charade
Disconsolate
O'er distant hills the rising moon

The evening mist dispersed,
And beaming in the radiant sky
She plainly showed my first.
A horseman guided by her light
Approached with headlong speed,

And as he rode, my second said
To urge his flagging steed.
His lady waited at the gate,

Though trysting hour was past;
She was my whole, because her lord
Was then my third and last!
—Anonymous.
(22) Btiried Names
Names of Eight British Poets
The sun is darting rays of gold

Upon the moor, enchanting spot,
Whose purple heights, by Ronald loved,
Up open to his shepherd cot.
And sundry denizens of air

Are flying, aye each to his nest
And eager make at such an hour
All haste to reach the mansions blest.
—A nonymoui
! — — ——
(Gray, Moore, Byron, Pope, Dryden, Gay, Keats, and

Hemans.)
(23) Irregular Lines
As a final example out of the countless varieties avail-

able, —
we take the "Yawp" to adopt the expressive term
used by that fertile yawper, Mr. W. J. Lampton. Miss
Wells has produced a typical "Yawp" in the following:
Dithyramb to an Aeroplane
O!
Aeroplane
Thou product of the mighty modern brain,
Whose flight is faster than a railroad train.
To thee I sing!
For thee I set my Pegasus a-wing
And bring
A meed of praise. Although
Just how much is a meed I do not know.
But that's nor here nor there.
Aeroplane,
O!
Bird of the upper air,
Though I admit that there

Is where
Most birds pursue their trackless way,
I hail thy day!
I'm glad that thou hast settled down to stay,
Well, no, I don't mean that! 'Twas said in fun,
I mean, thy glorious day has now begun.

— —
LIGHT VERSE 285
But tell US, winged one,

How is 't up there
In the high upper air?
Are the roads good? And is the scenery fair?
Is speeding fun? Or do aerial cops
Demand thy sudden stops?

I may as well admit
I'm scared a bit
At thought of new conditions brought about

By thine exalted route.
Must I
Henceforward walk with eyes upon the sky,

With head thrown back, neck strained and gaze upbent,
Fearing thy swift descent?
Or dreading lest thou chance to drop about
Some rubbish thou canst do without?
Or must I stay at home,
Fearing abroad to roam,
Lest careless chaps fling from those regions higher
Lighted cigars, and set my house on tire?
O Aeroplane,
These wonderings are vain!
So much I want to know.
Aeroplane, O!
Things thou alone canst tell
That —well
With thee I fain would chin;
So, if thou'rt passing by — drop in
—Carolyn Wells.
I
1. Briefly discuss Horace's line, quoted on page 221.

2. Select a humorous poem of high grade and point out
its humorous qualities.
3. Do the same for a witty poem.

Note: Exercises of this sort may be applied to other
forms indefinitely.
4. Discuss "John Gilpin's Ride," by Cowper.
5. Compare the humorous verse of Oliver Herford with
that of Gelett Burgess (see present day magazines).
6. Compare the humor of John Hay's poem, "Little
Breeches," with that of Bret Harte's "Jim," or his
"Truthful James" (sometimes called "The Heathen
Chinee").
7. Do the same for any other two well known poems
which are generally classed as hmnorous.
8. Select two sets of verses which illustrate the difference
(a) between ordinary parody and extravaganza; (b) bur-

lesque and extravaganza.
9. Tell what you know from experience or observation

of the quality of the "lyrics" used in musical plays today.
10. If in light verse a highly poetic line rich in imagery

be introduced, will it have a tendency to help or to hurt
the verse? Say why.
11. Write brief differentiating definitions of verse of the
following classifications: Vers de Societe, Satirical, Hu-
morous, Nonsense, and Whimsical Verse.
12. Which seems to you to be the sort best worth at-
tempting? Give reasons.

LIGHT VERSE 287
13. If Vers de Societe appeals to you, write several verses

in that style upon a theme that you think should prove
attractive to the leading magazines.
14. (a) Name an example of humorous verse that
appeals to you; {b) try to analyze and to capture the spirit
of its humor; {c) write a stanza or two embodying a dif-

ferent thought but with the same humorous turn or con-
struction.
15. Write a satirical stanza ridiculing some fashionable

foible or custom that seems to you to be in bad taste.
16. Has satire often wrought reforms?

17. Write a limerick upon the subject of your desire to
write a limerick.
Note: Unlimited imitations of whimsical forms may
be taken up as additional assignments.
APPENDICES
APPENDIX A
Glossary of Metrical Terms
Verse: A line of poetry; literally, the turn at the end of a
furrow; often loosely used for stanza; also used for
poetry in general.
Stanza: A series of lines forming a typical group, or part,

of a poem.
Foot: A group of syllables consisting of accented and

unaccented (or long and short, or strong and weak),
syllables in various combinations, as follows:
Iambus: A foot of two syllables, the first unaccented, the

second accented.
Trochee: A foot of two syllables, the first accented, the
second unaccented —the reverse of the iambus.

Anapaest: A foot of three syllables, the first and second
unaccented, the last accented.
Dactyl: A foot of three syllables, the first accented, the

second and third unaccented — the reverse of the
anapaest.
Amphibrach: A foot of three syllables, the first un-

accented, the second accented, the third unaccented
—the reverse of the amphimacer.
Amphimacer: A foot of three syllables, the first accented,

the second unaccented, the third accented.
-
APPENDICES 289
Spondee: A foot consisting of two equally accented sylla-
bles; a true spondee is almost unknown in English

verse.
Pyrrhic: A foot consisting of two unaccented syllables
the reverse of the spondee. This term is seldom

used.* The spondaic foot and the pyrrhic are ex-
ceptions to our definition of the foot.
Choriamb: A foot of four syllables, the first and fourth

accented, the second and third unaccented. This
term also is seldom used.
Monometer A : line of verse consisting of one foot.
Dimeteb A line consisting of two feet.

•
Trimeter: A line consisting of three feet.

Tetrameter: A line consisting of four feet.
Pentameter A line consisting of five feet.
:
Hexameter: A line consisting of six feet.

Heptameter: A line consisting of seven feet.
Octameter: A line consisting of eight feet.
Catalectic: A catalectic line is one that drops part of
the last foot; a line dropping a final syllable or
syllables.
Acatalectic: A line which has the complete number of

syllables in the last foot.
Heroic Verse Iambic pentameter,

: or a line of five iambic
feet (ten syllables).
—
'Note. Nearly all English meters may be scanned by the use of one or other
of the four kinds of metrical feet first mentioned above, viz.: iambus,
trochee, anapsst, or dactyl.
Elegiac Verse: Alternate hexameter and pentameter

lines.
Alexandrine Verse: Iambic hexameter, or a line of six

iambic feet (twelve syllables).
Caesura: Literally division; the pause in the middle of a
line. In classic verse it falls at the end of a word, but
usually in the middle of a foot; in English verse it
should fall at the end of both foot and word.

Strophe: The first movement or section of a Greek ode;
sometimes used for stanza.
Antistrophe: The second movement of a Greek ode,

following the strophe and identical with it in the
meter.
Epode: Literally an after-song; the third section of a

Greek ode, differing in meter from the strophe and the
antistrophe.
;
APPENDIX B
Some Books for the Further Study of Versification
A knowledge of the nature of poetry and an acquaint-

ance with a wide range of poems are of course fundamental
to an extended study of the technique of verse. A number
of books on poetry, as well as representative collections of
poems, are named in Appendix C. Those who would

make a more exhaustive study of metrical forms than is
afforded by this little book, will find help in the following
volumes —a few among many such:

Edwin Guest's "History of English Rhythms" (1838),
Second Edition, Revised by Prof. W. W. Skeat (London:
Bell, 1882); and George Saintsbury's "History of English
Prosody," 3 vols. (London and New York: Macmillan,

1906-1910), are exhaustive and learned works. One of
the best of the smaller treatises is F. B. Gummere's
" Handbook of Poetics " (Boston Ginn, 1891). Raymond
:
M. Alden's "English Verse" (New York: Holt, 1903) is

enriched by a large number of poetic examples illustrating
the whole range of versification. T. S. Omond's " English
Metrists" (Timibridge Wells: Pelton, 1903) is especially
valuable for its bibliography. Special phases of prosody
may also be studied in special books like the following:
"Science of English Verse," Sidney Lanier (New^York:

Scribner's, 1880) (lays emphasis on soundând rhythm)
292 ART OF VERSIFICATION
"The Musical Basis of Verse," Josephine P. Dabney

(London and New York: Longmans, 1901); "Essays on
Blank Verse," John Addington Symonds (New York:
Scribner, 1895); "Sonnets of this Century," William
Sharp (London: Scott, 1886); "Hexameter Verse,"
P. Cummings (Cambridge, Mass: 1900); "History of
Epic Poetry (post Virgilian)," John Clark (Edinburgh,
1900); "Old English Ballads," F. B. Gummere (Boston:
Ginn, 1904); and many others. Dr. Gummere's work
contains a valuable introduction and helpful notes. See
also the standard encyclopedias for both special and gen-
eral articles on versification. The "Reader's Guide,"
"Poole's Index to Periodical Literature," and similar
cumulative reference devices, will furnish titles to all
articles on the general and specific subjects desired which

have appeared in periodicals for a number of years.
APPENDIX C
Helps in the Study of Poetry
The first requisite for the study of poetry is poetry.

But in what form shall one buy or borrow it?
The complete poetic works of any one writer will be

valuable chiefly to those who are instructed as to which
are his best poems. Besides, to own the complete

works of the many authors whose poetry should be ex-
amined means a large expenditure of money, book-space,
and time for reading. To most students, therefore, col-
lections are invaluable. Of these there are many —even
many good ones. In the following greatly condensed
lists, only poetry in English is considered.
I . General Collections
"A Library of the World's Best Literature," edited by

Charles Dudley Warner and a corps of litterateurs (a sub-
scription work, in 31 and 46 volumes), contains two well-
selected volumes of "Songs, Hymns, and Lyrics," besides
extended (mostly signed) articles on, and abundant ex-
amples from, the poets of all lands. "The World's Best
Poetry" (also a subscription work, in 5 and 10 volumes),
edited by Bliss Carman and others, contains a good gen-
eral collection of poems classified according to themes,
394 ART OF VERSIPICATIOK
together with a number of popular signed essays on poetry

subjects. Edmund Clarence Stedman's "Victorian An-
thology" and "American Anthology" (Boston: Houghton,
MiflSin & Co., 1895 and 1900) form, combined, an excellent
general collection of limited scope.
2. British Anthologies
Frances T. Palgrave's "Golden Treasur>'" (London and

New York: Macmillans, 1861-1891) is a good inexpensive
collection, comprising 339 poems. "The Oxford Book of
English Verse," edited by A. T. Quiller-Couch (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1900) is also good. Two carefully edited
volumes, which together constitute the best low-priced
collection of annotated British poems, are "Standard
English Poems," edited by Henry S. Pancoast (New York:
Holt, 1899), and "Early English Poems," edited by Henry
S. Pancoast and John Duncan Spaeth (New York: Holt,
191 1). The most adequate, because the most extended,
British annotated anthology issued in America is "Enghsh
Poems," edited by Walter C. Bronson (University of
Chicago Press, 1907-1910), in four volumes (averaging
over 500 pp. each), comprising: "Old English and Middle
EngUsh Periods," "Elizabethan Age and Puritan Period,"
"Restoration and Eighteenth Century," and "Nineteenth
Century." The arrangement of the profuse selections
shows the rise and decline of successive schools of poe-
try, the several hundred pages of notes are illuminat-
ing, and the indexes, glossaries and bibliographies are
very full. Three well selected volumes of British verse
;
APPENDICES 295
have been edited with discriminating notes and biographi-

cal data by William Stanley Braithwaite. "The Book of
Elizabethan Verse" (Boston: Turner & "The
Co., 1907);
Book of Restoration Verse" (New York: Brentano, 1909)
and "The Book of Georgian Verse" (New York: Bren-
tano, 1908)
J. American Anthologies
Dr. Bronson has issued (191 2) a volume of "American

Poems," on the same excellent plan as his "English
Poems," and published by the same Press. Admirable
as this anthology is, it must share its eminence with the
"Yale Book of American Verse," edited by Thomas R.
Lounsbury (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1912).
Both are full, varied, and represent the selections of ripe
scholarship.
4. The Theory of Poetry
Aristotle's "Poetics," Sir Philip Sidney's "An Apolo,s;ie
for Poetics," and the three long poems by Horace, Vida,

and Boileau, each entitled "The Art of Poetry," are still
interesting and illuminating as examples of former-day

theory. (For annotated editions of all except Aristotle,
see Ginn's catalogue, Boston.) For a study of origins, see
"The Evolution of Literature," A. S. MacKenzie (New

York: Crowell, 191 1), and "The Beginnings of Poetry,"
F. B, Gummere (New York and London: Macmillan,
1 901). An exhaustive treatise is "The History of English
Poetry," Thomas Wharton (London: Ward, Lock & Co.,
296 ART OF VERSIFICATION
1778 et seq). "What is Poetry," Leigh Hunt, edited by

Albert S. Cook (Boston: Ginn, 1893), is not only a charm-
ing essay in itself but cites largely the opinions of dis-
men of letters. Edmund Clarence Stedman's

tinguished
"The Nature and Elements of Poetry" (Boston: Hough-
ton, Mifflin & Co., 1892) is a sound, though somewhat
oratorical presentment of the subject (the lectures were
delivered at Johns Hopkins University). A scholarly and
clear-sighted treatise is "Introduction to Poetry," Ray-
mond M. Alden (New York: Holt, 1909). There are also
in general literature many accessible essays bearing on
the nature of poetry; some of the best of these are : Shel-

ley's "Defense of Poesy;" Emerson's essays on "The
Poet" and "Poetry and Imagination;" Wordsworth's
introduction to the "Lyrical Ballads;" Matthew Arnold's
essays "On Translating Homer," introduction to the
"Poetry of Wordsworth," "Celtic Poetry," etc.; Lowell's
"Essay on Dryden;" Macaulay's "Essay on Milton,"
etc.; and Poe's essays on "The Rationale of Verse," "The
Poetic Principle," and "The Philosophy of Composition."
APPENDIX D
Light Verse
The fullest and most satisfactory anthologies of light
verse are those edited by Carolyn Wells, beginning with

"A Parody Anthology" and followed by the anthologies
of "Satire," "Whimsey," "Vers de Societe," and "Non-
sense" (New York: Scribner, 1904, '5, '6, '7, and '10).
Each volume is prefaced by an interpretive essay. A. S.

Martin's "On Parody" (New York: Holt, 1896) contains
not only an admirably discriminating study of the form
but a choice collection of verses interspersed with the text.
INDEX
Names of authors are printed in capitals, titles of books
are enclosed in quotations, titles of "poems" (whether
light verse, short poems, or long poetic works) are printed
in italics, and other topics are set in plain, or "roman,"
type.
Amphimacer, 37, 186, 288.

Abernethy, John, 282. Amphion, 15.
Absalom and Achitophel, Anagram lines, 282.
231. Anapaest, 37, 40, 41, 51,

Acatalectic line, 289. 186, 288, 289.
Accent, 41, 44, 47, 288, 289, Another Wise Man, 252.
290. Antistrophe, 147, 148, 290.
Acrostics, 271-272. Antithesis, 31.
Adams, W. Davenport, Arrow and the Song, The,
223. 214.
Addison, Joseph, 230. Arsis, 47.
Address to the Unco Quid, "Apologie for Poetrie, An,"
233- 10, 15.
Alneid, 132, 134. Apostrophe, 32.
Algous, 183, Appendix, 288.
Alcaics, 183. Archaic verse, 267.
Alden, R. M., 3.
Ariosto, 132.
Alexander's Feast, 150. Aristophanes, 222, 237.
Alexandrine, 114, 290. Aristotle, 8.
"Alice in Wonderland," "Aristotle's Theory of
256. Poetics and Fine Art,"

Alliteration, 37, 74, 83-89, 47-
273- Arnold, Matthew, 7, 91,
Alphabetical Verse, 278. 107, 167.
Amateur Flute, The, 249. Ars Poetica, ix, 12, 221.
Amphibrach, 37, 186, 288. Assonance, 83-89.
298
INDEX 299
As You Like It, 145. Beat, 41.

"Atlanta Georgian," 242. Beauty, 11, 19.
"Atlantic Essays," 100. Beginning-rhyme, 74, 276.
'*At the Lattice, "224. Bell Buoy, The, 64.
Attis, The, 186 Bells, The, 94, 95.
At Yule Time, 269. Bells of Shandon, The, 84,95.
Austin, Alfred, ii, 224. Beowulf, 131.
Autumnal Love Song, An, Bernard of Cluny (de
265. MoRLAs), 75.
Bertha, 282.
B Beware, 224.
Bab Ballads, 77, 256. "Bible, The," 155.
Bacon, Francis, 8. BiCKNELL, Frank M., 273.
Ballad, The, 16, 73, 88, 127, Biglow Papers, 229, 230,
152-155, 188. 235» 244.
Ballad measure, 153. "Biographia Literaria," 12.
Ballad of Bedlam, The, 260. Blair, Samuel, 8.
Ballad of Bouillabaisse, The, Blank verse, 133-139, 140-
224, 226, 227. 146.
Ballad of East and West, Boccaccio, G., 15.
The, 64, 66, 87. boileau, n., 69, 80.
Ballade, The, 188, 205. "Boston Traveler," 241.
Ballade a double refrain, Breedin, a. W., 274.
192, 193. Bridge of Sighs, The, 52, 72,
Ballade of Dead Ladies, 190. 73, 74;
Ballade of Prose and Rhyme, Bridge, The, 247.
The, 193. Bridges, Robert, 201.
Ballade of Ten Lines, 191. Brook, The, 62.
Ballade of the Voyage to
"Brooklyn Eagle," 261.
Cytherea, 192.
Brougham Castle, t,^,.
Browning, Mrs. E. B., 51,
"Ballades and Rondeaus,"
57, 114, 171, 174, 222,
188.
234-
The Double, 192.
Ballade,
Browning, Robert, 62,
Bangs, John Kendrick, 76, 87, 97, 120, 138, 145,
244. 168, 215.
Bard, The, 149. Bryant, W. C., 119.
Barham, R. H., 77, "Buffalo Evening News,"
Bal, The, 247. a6i.
'
300 IKDEX
Bugle, 75. Chain of Single Words, 279.

Burger, Gottfried, 98. Chain verse, 279.
Burgess, Gelett, 256. Chant royal. The, 205-208.
Buried names, 283. Charge of the Light Brigade,
Burlesque, 246. si-
Burns, Robert, 113, 120, Chaucer, Geoffrey, 15,
160, 215, 217, 222, 233. no. III, 188, 250.
Butcher, S. H., 47. Chevy Chase, 152.
Butler, Samuel, 233. Chiasm, 34.
' , '
Byron, Lord, 31, 32, 51, Chicago Record-Herald
'
70, 113, 120, 133, 229, 261.

284. Childe Harold, 5, 32, 113.
Children of the Lord's
Supper, 181.
Ccpsar, Julius, ^s, 34- Choriambus, 185, 289.
Ca-sura, 115, i35-i37j 181, Chorus, 147.
290. Christabel, 55, loi, 124, 125.
Calverley, C. S., 278. Christmas, 245.
Campbell, Thomas, 127. Clear Vision, The, 48.
Campkin, H., 280. "Cleveland Plain Dealer,"
Canning and Frere, 185. 261.
Canterbury Tales, no. Clerke of ye Wethere, Ye,
Carey, Phcebe, 248. 250.
Carlyle, Thomas, 10, 25. Coleridge, S. T., 5, 12, 27,
Carmagnole, le, 60. 28, 37, 55. loi, 102, 103,
Carrlere, D. D., 7. 107, 115, 124, 125, 180,
Carroll, Lewis, 247, 255, 181, 222.
256, 257, 258. Collins, William, 238.
Casa Guidi Windows, 114. Come down, O maid, 160.
Catalectic line, 50, 53, 185, Come into the Garden, Maud,
289. 108.
Cataract of Lodore, 93. Common meter, 115.
Celestial Country, The, 75. Contraction, 126.
Cento verse, 266. " Conversations on Some
Century of Roundels, 196. Old Poets," I.
Chanson de Roland, le, 83. Cotter's Saturday Night,

Charades, 283. The, 113.
Chain of Phrases, 279. Couplet, 116.
INDEX 301
coukthope, w. j., 3. Double Ballade, The, 190.

Cowley, R., 149. Double rhyme, 72, 76.
CowPER, W., 51, 57, 115. Dover Beach, 91.
Crawford, Louisa M., 218. DowD, C. B., 243.
Crossing the Bar, 118. Drama, 20.
Crown of Sonnets, A, 171. " Dramatic Art and Litera-
ture," 140.
D Dramatic pause, 142.
Dactyl, 37, 40, 41, 51, 52, Dramatic poetry, 140-146.
53, 186, 288, 289. Drayton, Michael, 121.
Dancing, 17, 37, 189. Dream of Fair Women, A,
Daniel, Arnaut, 208. 3I; 91-
Danny Deever, 64, 65. Drummond of Hawthorn-
Dante, 79, 85, 114, 132, 208. den, 171.
Davis, L. C, 252. Dryden, John, 150, 229,
Death Bed, The, 34. 284.
De Contemptu Mundi, 75. Duenna, The, 226.
"Defense of Poetry, A," 7, Dunbar, Paul Lawrence,
8, 10. 245-
Deceitful Balladist, Ye, 267.
Delight, 12, 39, loi.
"Denver Post," 242. Earthly Paradise, The, 112.
Descent of Briggs, The, 270. Eastman, Charles G., 266.
Destruction of Sennacharib, Echo, 281.
The, 51. Echo verses, 281.
"Detroit Free Press," 261. Edward, Edward, i^j.
Dialect verse, 267. IClegiac meter, 181.
Diction, 22. Elegiac verse, 115, 290.
"Dichtung und Wahrheit," Elegy in a Country Church-
II. yard, 42, 44, 45, 48, 52,
Dimeter, 53, 289. 53-
Disconsolate, 283. Elegy on the Death of a Mad
Dithyramb to an Aeroplane, Dog, 239.
284. Eliot, George, 34, 56, 84.
Divine Comedy, 114, 132. Elision, 126.
DoBSON, Austin, 193, 195, Ellis, Robinson, 186.
196, 204, 205, 223, 227. Emerson, R. W., 7, 116,
DoDGSON, Charles L. (See 222.
Lewis Carroll). Emotion, 5, 6, 39.
302 INDEX
End-stopped lines, 144. Feminine rhyme. 72.

End-rhyme, 73. Firkins, Chester, 243.
English heroic measure. Fitzgerald, Edward, 118.
"Florida Times-Union,"
Enigma, 273. 261.
Ennius, 15. Folk-Mote by the River, The,
Envoy, The, 189-194. 24.
"Encyclopedia Brittanica," Foot, 40, 47-58, 59, 288,
6. 289.
Epic, 16, 19, 130-132, 140, Foot-note to a Famous Lyric,
179. 159-
Epodes, 290 Form, 38.
Equivocal lines, 280. French forms, 188-213.
Eskitology, 260. Friend in Need, A 268. ,
Essay on Criticism, 30, 90. Friend of Humanity and tlie
"Essay on Milton," 8. Knife-Grinder, The, 184.

Evangeline, 6, 181.
Eve of St. Agnes, 113.
Exclamation, 34. Galliambic, 185.
Exercises, 13, 20,
35, 45, Gay, Thomas, 284.
55, 67, 80, 88, 98, 108, Geographical whimseys,
122, 128, 132, 138, 145, 274.
151, 155, 161, 176, 186, Giaour, The, 31.
213, 219, 286. Gilbert, W. S., 77, 256,
Expansion, 126. 263.
Extravaganza, 246. Gilder, R. W., 174.
Glass, Dudley, 242.
Glossary, 288.
Faerie Queen, The, 113, 114, Goethe, J. W. von, ii,
Fair Annie of Lochroyan, 232.
153- Goldsmith, Oliver, 239.
Fairchild, H. R., 22. Googe, Barnaby, 279.
Faithless Nelly Gray, 238. GossE, Edmund, 149, 210.
FaitlUess Sally Brown, 239. GowER, J., 15.
Familiar Letter to Several Graves, A. P., 76.
Correspondents, A, 334. Groves of Blarney, The, 84.
Fate of Nassan, The, 275. Gray, Thomas, 42, 45, 48,
Father O'Flynn, 76. 52, 53, 149, 284.
Feminine endings, 143. Greene, Albert G., 228.
INDEX 303
GuiNEY, Louise Imogen, Homeric compoimds, 25.

159- Homeric unity, 166.
GUMMERE, F. B., 7, 59, 152. Hood, Thomas, 34, 52, 72,
73, 74 .238, 239, 242. 266,
H 277.
Halleck, Fitz-Greene, Horace, ix, 12, 221, 222,
34. 228.
Hamlet, 142, 143. "Houston Post," 262.
Hammerton, p. G., I. Hovering accent, 127.
Hancock, La Touche, 236, How do I love thee? 174.
237, 239. How, M. W., 115.
"Handbook of Poetics," 7. How They Brought the Good
Hardy, Robert T., 264, News from Ghent to Aix,
265. 97-
Hegel, G. W. F., 10. Howard, Henry, 163.
Heine, H., 38. Hubbard, James H., 241,
Hemans, Felicia, 284. 264.
Hendecasyllabics, 182. Hudibras, 233.
Henley, W. E., 194, 197, Hugo, Victor, 161, 210.
198, 222. "Human Tragedy, The,"
Henry IV, 86. II.
Heptameter, 289. Humor, 228, 237.
Herford, Oliver, 256. Humorous verse, 237.
Heroes, 60. Hunt, Leigh, 3, 8, 109, 175.
Heroic Couplets, 114. Hymn before Sunrise, 27, 28.
Heroic poetry, 179. Hyperbole, 33.
Heroic verse, 289. Hyperion, 145.
Herrick, Robert, 117.
Hesiod, 15. I
Hexameter, 115, 179, 289, Iambus, 37, 40, 41, 48, 52,
290. no, III, 1X2, 113, 186, 288,
Hiawatha, 51. 289.
HiGGINSON, T. W., 100. Ich bin Dein, 267.
His Plan, 239. / count my time, etc., 174.
Hodgson, S. H., 133. Idyls of the King, 145.
Holmes, 0. W., 121, 222, Iliad, 114, 131.
234- Imagery, 28.
Homer, 15, 25, 38, 92, 107, Imagination, 8, 23, 29.
i3i> 134. Imperfect rhymes, 70.
304 INDEX
In a Drear-Nighted Decem- King, Ben, 247.

ber, 78. King James I, iii.
Indenting lines, 121, 122. King of Denmark's Ride,
Ingoldsby Legends, The, 77. The, 97.
In Memoriam, 6, 31, 33, 117. King's Quhair, The. iii.
In Mournfid Numbers, 275 King Henry VIII, 143.
Inner impulse of verse, 63, King Henry of Navarre, 154.
66. Kingsley, Charles, 154.
Internal-rhyme, 75, 276, Kipling, Rudyard, 64, 5,
277. 65, 87, 96, 102, 155, 208,
Interpretation, 6. 253.
Interrogation, 34. Kitty, 81-82.
"Introduction to Poetry," Kubla Khan, 102, 107.
3- Kyrie Eleison, 202.
Inscription on a Well, 116. Kyrielle, The, 188, 202.
In Vain Today, 195.
Irony, 2^.
Irregularities, 54, 124-129, Lady Clare, 155.
141. Lady Geraldine's Courtship,
Irwin, Wallace, 255. 51-
It's Very Queer, 243. Lamb, Charles, 138, 160.
Ivry, 154. Lampton, W. J., 284.
Landor, W. S., 12, 180.
Lang, Andrew, 106, 166,
Jahberwocky, 256, 257, 258. 170, 171, 189, 190, 191,
Jerusalem Delivered, 132. 192.
Jerusalem the Golden, 75. Langland, William, 85.
Johnson, Samuel, 8, 279. Language of poetry, 8, 10,
Jones, Charles C, 268. 22, 39.
JoNSON, Ben, 147, 148, 149. Lanier, Sidney, x, 9, 28,
Jordan, Thomas, 271. 83, 215.
Juvenal, 228. "L' Art Poetique," 69.
Last Leaf, The, 121.
K Latin hymns, 73, 75, 152.
Kalevala, The, 131. La Tourette, Charles,
Kathleen Mavourneen, 217. 269.
Keats, John, 67, 78, 102, Lear, Edward, 255, 256,
103, 113, 145, 151. 171, 258, 259, 262.
174, 222, 251, 284. "Lectures on Poetry," 4.
INDEX 305
Legend of Good Women, The, "'LyxicaX Ballads," 7, 12.

188. Lyrical measures, 182.
Lenore, 98.
Letter verse, 273. M
"Liberal Movement in Macaronic verse, 267.
English Literature, The," Macaulay, T. B., 8, 28,
3- 154.
Light endings, 143. Mackail, J. W., 4.
Light verse, 221-287. McCo^fNELL, T. C, 263.
Limerick, 262. Magnificat, The, 155.
Linus, 15. Mahabharata, The, 131.
Lipograms, 274. Mahoney, Francis, 84.
"Lippincott's Magazine,"
"Making of Poetry, The,"
22.
222, 241, 242, 262.
Mandalay, 64, 65, 96.
Litotes, 34.
Man of Letters, A, 273.
Livius Andronicus, 15.
Man's Requirements, A ,
Locker-Lampson, F., 223.
234-
Locksley Hall, 116. Marco Bozzaris, 34.
LoiZEAU, Cecilia, 244. Marlowe, Christopher,
Longfellow, H. W., 6, 42, 48, 56.
43, 50, 51. 53» 56, 98, ii7> Marriage of Sir John Smith,
155, 167, 168, 169, 181, The, 248.
214, 218, 219, 222, 224, Marseillaise, le, 60.
225, 247, 254. Mason, Walt, 278.
Long meter, 116. Masculine rhyme, 72.
Love as It is Gram- Matthews, Brander, 69,
mared, 266. 117, 124, 133, 223.
Love in Idleness, 213. Mayo, G., 260.
Lovelace, Sir Richard, Meeting at Night, 120.
158, 159- Merchant of Venice, 30.
Love's Labor^s Lost, 86, 144.
Metaphors, 8, 28, 30.
Lowell, James Russell,
Meter, 10, 40, 109-123.
1,6,70,85,157,229,235,
Metonymy, 31.
244.
Lucasta, To, 158. Middle rhyme, 277.
Lycidas, 92, 112, 113. Mill, John Stuart, 6.
Lyrics, 20, 69, 73, 138, 157- Miller's Daughter, The, 32.
162, 214. Milliken, R. a., 84.
'
3o6 INDEX
Milton, John, " Nashville Tennessean,

'
33, 49, 50,

61, 92, 104, 112, 113, 126, 260.
132, 133-137, 145. 171, Nature Faker, A , 240.
174, 183, 222. Nell Gwynn, 169.
Misanthrope, The, 259. Neumarker, J. G., 251.
Mnemonics, 266. Niebelungen Lied, 131.
MoBERLY, E. F., 240, 252- No More, 236.
255- Nonsense verse, 255-265.
Monologue d'ouire Tombe, Norton, Caroline, E. S. 97.
211. "Nonsense Books," 256.
Monometer, 289. "Nonsense Anthology, A,"
Monorhymes, 278. 256.
Montenegro, 168. Now sleeps the crimson petal,
MooRE, Thomas, 5, 50, 160.
215, 284. Numerical oddities, 275.
MoREWOOD, G. B., 276.
Morris, William, 24, iii. O
Mosaic verse, 266. Octameter, 289.
Movement, 37 (see Ono- Oddities of conception, 265-
matopoeia, 90-99), 157. 268.
MoxoN, Frederic, 268. Oddities of form, 268-285.
MuSiEus, 15. Ode, no, 147-151, 290.
Music, 37. Ode on a Bust of Dante,
"Music and Poetry," 9. 106.
Musical rhythm, 59, 159. Ode on a Grecian Urn, 151.
My Chaperon, 225. Ode on the Death of Sir. H.
My Heart's in the High- Morison, 148.
lands, 160. Ode on the Death of the Duke
My love for thee doth march, of Wellington, 150.
etc., 174. Ode on the Intimations of
My widespread Indebted- Immortality, 150.
ness, 274. Ode on a Jar of Pickles, 251.
Ode to a Nightingale, 102,
N 151-
Nameless Grave, A, 167. Ode to Duty, 151.
Names oj Eight British Ode to the West Wind, 151.
Poets, 283. Odes of the Greek drama,
"Nature and Elements of 149.
Poetry, The," 3, 29, 157. Odyssey, The, 132, 170,
INDEX 307
Old, Familiar Faces, The, Patter song, 77.

138, 160. Paul Revere' s Ride, 98.
Old Grimes, 228. Pause (see Caesura).
Old Rhythm and Rhyme, Pavilion, The, 202.
221. Payne, John, 56, 199, 203,
Omar Khayyam, 79, 118, 204.
253- Peacock, Thos. L., 76.
0, My Luve^s Like a Red, Pelleas and Etarre, 31.
Red Rose, 216. Pentameter, 115, 181, 289.
One or Toother, 240. Perry, Katharine, 244.
One Word More, 62, 138. Personification, 33.
On First Looking into Chap- Petrarch, 163, 174.
man's Homer, 174. Phillips, Stephen, 145.
Only Way, The, 241. Pindar, 147.
Onomatopoeia, 90-99 Pindaric Ode, 147, 148.
"On Some Technical Ele- Plato, ii.
ments of Style in Litera- PoE, E. A., II, 22, 56, 76,
ture," 37. 94^95. 158, i79> 249> 272.
On Westminster Bridge, 1 74. Poet, The, 118.
Opera, 214. "Poetic Principle, The," 11.
Orlando Furioso, 132. "Poetics," 8
Orpheus, 15. Poetry: compared with
0, Swallow, Swallow, 160. verse, 13; defined, 1-4;
Ottava Rima, 112. elements of, 4; language
Oxymoron, 35. of, 8, 10, 22; origin of 15.
,
"Poetry and Imagination,"

7-
Palindrome lines, 280. Pope, Alexander, 30, 90,
Panegyric on the Ladies, 114, 1x6, 125, 229, 230,
280. 284.
Pantoum, The, 210-213. Poulter's measure, 112.
Paradise Lost, 33, 61, 92, Powell, 266.
132-137- Princess, The, 75, 93, 13S,
Parody, 245-255. 160.
Parsons, T. W., 106. Probyn, May, 198.
Passing of Arthur, The, 93. Profit, 12.
Passionate Shepherd, The, Progress of Poesy, 149.
48, 56. Prometheus Unbound, 145.
Patmore, Coventry, 147. Prose verse, 277.
3o8 INDEX
Prosody, ii. Rondeau redouble, The,

Proud King, The, 112. 198, 199.
Psalm of Life, ^, 42, 43, 44, Rondel, The, 188, 197.
45> 50, 53. 117- Rondelet, The, 198.
"Punch," 260. RosETTi, Dante G., 119,
Punning verse, 238-243. 127, 154, 165, 167, 172.
Purgatorio, 208. RoTHROCK, Harry A., 264.
Purist, The, 277. Roundel, The, 188, 196.
Pyro-technique, 240. Rules of the Italian Sonnet,
Pyrrhic, 289. 175. 176.
Run-on lines, 144.
Q RusKiN, John, ii.
Quantity, 41, 53, 54.
Quatrain, 117.
Queen Elizabeth, 112. Sagas, The, 131.
Quên Mob, 34. Saga of King Olaf, 56.
"St. Louis Times," 261.
R Samson Agonistes, 50.
Raven, The, 56, 76. Sands of Dee, The, 1 54.
Real Summer Girl, A, 251. Sapphics, 183.
Recessional, 5. Sappho, 183.
Refrain, 154, 189-194. Satire, 33, 228.
Rejected Addresses, 77. "Satire Anthology, A,"
Religion, 17, 18. 251-
Rhyme, 37, 69-82, 100. Satires, 230, 231.
Rhyme Royal, iii. Satirical verse, 227-237.
Rhythm, 10, 11, 37, 59-6<^, S.AXE, J. G., 235, 282.
(see Onomatopoeia, 91- Scanning, 52, 289.
99)- SCHLEGEL, A. W. von, I40.
Riding rhyme, no. Scholar, The, 120.
Ring and the Book, The, 145. Schiller, J. C. F., 115,
Robinson, A. Mary F., 180, 181.
202. "Science of English Verse,
Roman de la Rose, le, 227. The," 83.
Romeo and Juliet, 35, 107. Scorn Not the Sonnet, 173.
Rondeau, The, 188, 194- Scott, Sir Walter, 98.
196. SCOVILLE, S.^MUEL, Jr.,
Rondeau of Villon, 195. 201.
Rondeau of Voiture, 194. "Septenary, The," 152.
INDEX 309
Serenade, 218. Sonnet, The, 172, 173.

Serenade at the Villa, -4,119. Sonnet from Astrophel and
Sestina, The, 208. Stella, 165.
Sestina of the Tramp Royal, Sonnet on His Blindness,
208. 174.
Shakespeare, William, 7, Sonnets Dedicated to Liberty,
25, 30, 33, 34, 35, 57, 85, 171.

86, 105, 107, 124, 127, Sonnets from the Portuguese,
141-145, 164, 169, 171, 57-
222. "Sonnets of This Century,"
Shelley, P. B., 5, lo, 34, 163.
119, 145, 151, 171, 214. Sonnet's Voice, The, 172.
Sheridan, R. B., 226. Sophocles, 38.
She Walks in Beauty, 120. Sorcerer, The, 77.
Sharp, William, 163. Sorrows of Werther, The,
Short Meter, 115. 232.
Sidney, Sir Philip, 10, 12, Sound, ID, 37 (see also
IS, 163, 169. Rhyme, 69-82 Ono- ;
Simile, 30. matopoeia, 90-99; and

Single rhyme, 72, 76. Tone-color, 100-108).
Sir Patrick Spens, 127. Southey, R., 32, 93.
Sister Helen, 154. Spanish Gypsy, The, 34,
Skylark, The, 5, 119. 56, 84.
Sleeping Palace, The, 125. Spanish Student, The, 218.
Slurring, 126. Spenser, Edmund, 19, 113,
Smith, Horace and James, 114, 171.
77-
Spenserian stanza, 113, 114.
Spondee, 37, 179, 180, 186,
Solitude of Alexattder Sel-
kirk, 51, 57. 289.
Spring Sadness, 56, 203.
Song, 189.
Stanza, The, 109-123, 2S&.
Song for St. Cecilia s Day,
Stedman, E. C, 3, 9, 29,
150.
157-
Song of Deborah, 155. Stevenson, R. L., 37, 108.
Song of Moses and the Chil- Stinson, Sam S., 240.
dren of Israel, 155. Stress (see Accent).
Song of the Brook, 93. Strong syllables, 41.
Song- writing, 214-220. Strophe, 147, 148, 290.
Sonnet, The, 57, 163-177. "Study of Poetry, The," 7.
3IO INDEX
" Study of Versification, A," Thackeray, W. M., 224,

69, 117, 124, 133. 226, 227, 232.
Suggestive words, 24. Theodore de Banville,
Suicide, The, 242. 192.
Sullivan, Sir Arthur, Thesis, 47.
256. Thought, 5.
Sunset-Wings, 119. "Through a Looking-
SusMAN, Harold, 235. glass," 256.
Surrey, Earl of, 134. Time, 61.
Sweet and Low, 75, 97. Tintern Abbey, 145.
Swinburne, A. C, 87, 103, To a Mountain Daisy, 121.
128, 170, 184, 185, 196, To a Waterfowl, 119.
208. To Be or Not to Be, 235.
47-58
Syllables, 40, To Mrs. Thrale, 278.
Synecdoche, 31. Tone-color, 100-108.
Tongue twisters, 280.
"Topeka Capital," 241.
Tabb, Father John, 117. Town of Passage, The, 84.
Tail-rhyme stanza, 121. Travesty, 245-255.
Talking Oak, The, 107. Trimeter, 289.
Tannhauser, 60. Triolet, The, no, 188, 201
Tasso, 132. Triple rhyme, 72.
Taylor, Bayard, 67, 222, Trochee, 37, 40, 41, 50, 52,
251. 186, 288, 289.
Taylor, Jane, 247. Troy las and Crysede, in.
Tears, Idle Tears, 160. Twists of language, 265.
Technique, 38, 39. Two Voices, The, 116.
Telegram, 282. Typical Topical Song, The,
Tempest, The, 86, 141, 142, 236.
144. Typographical oddities,
Tennyson, Alfred, 6, 22, 270.
31, 32, 33, 5i> 53, 54, 55,
62, 63, 64, 71, 75, 91, 97,
107, 108, 116, 117, 118, Valentine, A, 272.
138, 14s, 155, 160, 168, Variant words, 25.
182, 183. Verse, 288.
Tercets, 200. Vers de societe, 214, 223,
Terza rima, 113. .237-
Tetrameter, 289. Villanelle, The, 200.
INDEX 3"
Villon, Francois, 190, "What is Poetry?" 3, 8,
191, 195. 109.

Virelai, The, 203. What is to Come, 195.
Virelai, nouveau, The, 203, Wheeler, E. J., 81, 82.
204. Where the Fun Comes In,
Virgil, 97, 132, 134, 254. 244.
Vision, 32.
Whimsical shapes, 268.
Vision Concerning Piers the
Whimsical verse, 265-285.
Plowman, The, 85. White, Gleeson, 188.
Vision of Jtidgment, A, 32.
Whitman, Walt, 60.
Whittier, J. G., 48, 251.
Vision of Sir Launfal, The,
Wilcox, Ella Wheeler,
6.
221-222.
Voice of the East to the Voice
Wilson, McLandburgh,
of the West, 243.
243-
Voice of the West to the Voice
Winter's Tale, A, 105, 124,
of the East, 243. 144.
VoiTURE, Vincent, 194. Wit, 227.
Voltaire, A., 229. Winthrup, Anne W., 226.
Von Kraft, Karl, 262. Wolfe, Charles, 248.
Vowel-rhyme, 83. Woman's Will, 235.
Women's Chorus, 237.
W Words, 22, 100-108.
Wagner, Richard, 85. Wordsworth, William,
Warning, 244. 7. 12, 33, 54, 126, 145,
War-Song of Dinas Vawr, 150, 151, 171, 173, 180,
77- 266.
"Washington Herald," 261. World is too mu^h unth us.
Watts-Dunton, Theo- The, 174.
dore, 6, 172. Wreck, The, 22.
Ways of Death. The, 197. Wreck of the Hesperus, 155.
Weak endings, 144. Wrenched accent, 127.
Weak syllables, 41. "Writing the Short-Story,"
Wells, Carolyn, 223, 231, 130.
246, 253, 256, 257, 263, Wyatt, Sir Thomas, 163.
284, 285.
Whateley, Archbishop,
II. Yawp, 284.
•.f.v
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THE WRITER'S REFERENCE LIBRARY

THE HOME CORRESPONDENCE SCHOOL

Chapter I The Nature of Poetry .... i

Chapter II The Origin and Progress of Poetry i5

1. The Origin of Poetry 16

Chapter III The Language of Poetry . .22

TABLE OF CONTENTS Vll

Chapter XII Irregularities 124

Chapter XIII —Epic Poetry 130

Chapter XIV Blank Verse 133

Chapter XV Dramatic Poetry 140

Chapter XVI The Ode 147

Chapter XVII The Ballad 152

Chapter XVIII The Lyric 157

Chapter XIX The Sonnet 163

Chapter XX Imitations of Classical Meters 178

Chapter XXI French Forms 188

Vlll TABLE OF CONTENTS

the forms of expression. Poetry is first a gift, then an

Why is he honor'd with a poet's name,

Unpolished verses pass with many men,

Is such a rash, ill-grounded confidence

As men may pardon, but will never praise.

So advised Horace in his "Ars Poetica, " and so would

pains to follow the exercises appended to nearly every

Sidney Lanier, ''there is no law: the perception and love

Teachers, it is hoped, will find the simple and progres-

suflScient promise of its usefulness as a class-room text,

The authors acknowledge gratefully the help given by

manuscript of this volume; and the valuable assistance of

Thanks are also due the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin

& Co., for courteous permission to use illustrative extracts

from the poems of Longfellow, Bryant, Lowell, Holmes,

the poems and light verse by John Kendrick Bangs, Ella

Wheeler Wilcox, Carolyn Wells, Paul Lawrence Dunbar,

Sonnet," by Richard Watson Gilder; W. B. Conkey Co.,

elsewhere referred to, and for her "Limericks" and

for his "Villanelle;" and Mr. Edward J. Wheeler, for his

THE NATURE OF POETRY

of lambs, of the shadows of leaves and flowers that have leaned

Since time-out-of-mind, critics have disputed over the

tion is widely accepted. Indeed, it is likely that we shall

never have a precise and comprehensive positive definition,

him greatest. Perhaps this is especially true with regard

to definitions essayed by poets themselves.

the nature of poetry. We know, for instance, pretty well

what it is not, and we also know positively what qualities

A comparative examination of such definitions and

contrast, and elimination, we have a residue of definition

THE NATURE OF POETRY 3

touching poetry as a thing produced —and not that of

intangible essence, the spirit of poetry —which may serve

Let us now quote, without discussing, several of the

reference a larger group of descriptive phrases — less com-

Poetry is "imaginative metrical discourse; or, more ex-

plicitly, . . the art of representing human experi-

ences, in so far as they are of lasting or universal interest,